Desolation
by Losseniaiel
Summary: When Sauron regains the Ring, the Elves flee Middle-earth. But some bonds are too strong to break, and a few must stay behind to fight for love and duty. Epilogue up.
1. The Eye

**Desolation**

**Disclaimers: **Elrond is mine … all mine. I keep him in the cupboard for nefarious purposes. Well, he would be if Tolkien and his estate, and New Line hadn't got there first. As it is, I own nothing. Literally, nothing.

However, Hugo Weaving *thud* as Tick from Priscilla has taken up residence in my head *giggles and does a very silly dance*

**Summary:** AU. All is lost when the Ring falls into Sauron's hands. But, as darkness engulfs Middle-earth, one elven warrior refuses to choose safety in Valinor. Elrond will not leave the Hither Lands to their fate. Angst, angst, and more angst. A little tiny pinch of Elrond/Celebrian for seasoning. 

**Rating:** PG-13 because this computer is as slow as continental drift, and I don't really fancy having to repost this. So it's probably not PG-13, but just in case.

**A/N:** The parts in italics are Elrond's memories, just to make it clearer.

***********

A harsh, sulphur-laden wind stormed across the land, blasting everything in its path. The undersides of the tangled clouds were lit with a furious blood red from the myriad fires which burnt ancient woods and homesteads.

In this ghastly light, under a sky which spoke of a terrible doom, living creatures fled hither and thither, desperately seeking sanctuary where there was none. Frightened beasts bellowed in pain as scorching cinders fell from the fiery besmirched heavens. Children screamed out, fearing the twisted shadows which stole their world from them. Amid all this, bands of orcs rampaged, voices hoarse with foul joy, scenting blood and victory. And, in the East, a flickering red eye hung low on the horizon.

As the hellish wind howled across the waste, which only weeks before had been fertile fields, it whipped the hair of a solitary figure standing on a high bluff overlooking the Havens. The cloaked Elf stared grimly at the Gulf of Lune down which drifted the last ships of his people bound for Aman. Aboard these fragile vessels, all of the Firstborn who could forsook the land which had nurtured them for long millennia, escaping back into the bosom of the Valar, to peace beyond the conflicts of Middle-earth. 

And he could not – would not – go within them. He would remain in the lands of his birth, fighting the all-encompassing corrupting darkness with the last ounce of his flickering spirit.

Elrond Peredhil scarcely noticed the noxious wind which buffeted him in that high place, but he reached up one elegant hand to brush an ebony strand of hair away from his pale cheek. His gaze remained fixed on the West.

"I wish I could return to you, meleth-nîn," he murmured. "My Celebrían, I wish I could sail into that fair harbour, and see your beloved face in the crowd, that I might leave this destitute land for the joy of the Blessed Realm."

Yet, the Half-elven would not leave Middle-earth to this despair. Just as his parents had carried the Silmaril into the West, and begged for leniancy and the help of the Valar, so Elrond would stay to fight for the Free Peoples.

Elrond had thought he had known fear when Gil-galad had fallen under the hand of Sauron, but that paled in the face of the abyss which confronted him now. All was plunged into gloom.

Tears trickled from the luminous eyes as Elrond contemplated the fate of the world which he had protected for so long. Frodo Baggins was dead, or worse, and the One Ring had fallen into the hands of the creature from whom they had striven to withhold it forever.

"Why?" he screamed into the gale, abandoning for once his famous composure. He wished that there might be an answer, that the inscrutable Ilúvatar himself might respond to a plea for peace, as he had never done before. But no reply came, apart from a low cry of agony, borne on the wind from afar.

His voice fell, and, barely audible, the Lord of Imladris whispered into the teeth of the gale, "So it has come to this, that the broken must fight, and I must go once more into battle, with no hope of victory.

His mind drifted back to that awful night so short a time before.

_All day, a dull sense of foreboding had been growing in the back of his mind, shadowing his thoughts and blunting his wits._

_Escaping the crowds thronging the Hall of Fire, he wandered aimlessly onto a balcony overlooking the path eastwards into the Misty Mountains. He tried to blot out the nervous whirl of his thoughts. Although a relentless niggling remained, Elrond managed at least to balm his mind and body with the comforting sounds of the night._

_Abruptly, his concentration was ripped from such things. Elrond knew with horrifying certainty that something was terribly, appallingly wrong. Tingling, stinging pains crawled up and down his right arm. He wondered if this was what it felt like when a mortal's heart failed. For an instant, his thoughts flickered to Elros._

_Then, with a momentarily blinding glare, a great cloud of ash, and fire, and dust arose in the south-eastern sky, boiling and billowing outwards with a furious speed. Before it ran a wind which carried the stench of death, of putrefying flesh to his nostrils. In a heartbeat, during which Elrond imagined himself transported back three thousand years to the Dagorlad, the odour of Mordor engulfed fair Imladris. In the halls below, the assembled mass gasped in fear and confusion._

_As Elrond swayed against the stone balcony, struggling to keep himself upright under the twin assault of dread and disgust, a livid eye of fire blossomed in his mind, piercing his soul. A great stab of agony shot down his arm to Vilya, glowing ominously on his hand. Panting, Elrond grabbed the ring and wrenched it from his finger, only just curbing the desire to cast it as far away as possible._

_A hand descended on Elrond's shoulder as he pondered the tiny object in his palm. He spun around, reaching for a weapon he no longer wore, only to find Glorfindel staring at him with lines of worry etched upon his face._

_The golden-haired Elf simply said, "That was from Mordor, was it not?"_

_"Aye," replied Elrond, running the hand which did not clutch Vilya across his face. "Sauron has the One Ring. I have felt it. The quest of the Fellowship has failed."_

_With a burst of clarity, Elrond realised the full consequences of this catastrophe, and, finally, his legs gave way under him. The Lord of Imladris slumped to the cold stone, shaking uncontrollably. Glorfindel crouched down beside him, urgently grasping one of the Peredhel's shoulders._

_When Elrond looked up, his friend could see the tears flowing freely down his cheeks, shining in the light of the lanterns._

_"They are gone. They are gone. Dear Eru, how can I bear this? How dare I expect Celebrían to bear this?" he muttered sadly, heartbreak clearly delineated in his fine features. "I let them go, and now they are lost to me. Nothing near to Mordor could have survived that … that ... And my three sons stood at its gates. I see that Middle-earth will consume all that I love, and I shall be bereft." A great sob wracked him._

_Wordlessly, Glorfindel stroked his friend's shoulder, not needing, or daring, to mention the obvious: that, overwhelmed by this triple blow, Arwen Undómiel would in all likelihood soon follow Aragorn, and pass beyond the circles of Arda._

_Gradually, the paroxyms subsided, and the Elven Lord scrambled to his feet. Rising more sedately to stand by his side, Glorfindel met the other's eyes. What he saw in those grey depths made him shiver: a look of resolute despair, and steadfast, implacable immovability in revenge, which Glorfindel had only seen twice before: when Gil-galad fell, and when the news of Celebrían's capture reached Rivendell._

_"We will wait here as long as we can, gauging the course which affairs will take, and then we will lead such of our people as we can gather to the Havens." Each of Elrond's syllables echoed hollowly. "I shall find volunteers to attempt to journey to Mirkwood and Lothlórien. The Elves will take passage out of Middle-earth."_

A melancholy shudder convulsed Elrond's body as he contemplated his bitter memories of that time of sorrowful waiting. Only too vividly, he remembered the confrontation with Arwen, both of them too immersed in inconsolable grief to argue over her choice.

_Elrond stood before his desk, his head bowed, tracing the pattern of the tiles with one foot. The new grief which he had already perceived to be inevitable consumed his mind._

_Thus, he was surprised to find that Arwen had crossed the chamber to stand before him, her dark tresses, so much like his own, framing her pallid face._

_Gazing deeply into his eyes, Arwen declared, "You do not mean to leave Middle-earth either. You will stay."_

_"Yes." He fidgeted agitatedly with the embroidered cuff of his robe. "But when this chaos takes me, I shall go to Mandos, and not to the doom of Men."_

_"Adar, you know that matters not to me."_

_"Aye," the Peredhel sighed, finally acknowledging what he had known yet denied for so long. "If I followed my heart, I would never have left your mother's side; I would sail into the West to join her, and pay no further attention to these sorrowful lands."_

_"But then you would not be the man she fell in love with."_

_Elrond smiled weakly._

_"Sometimes I feel that the last few days are surely an eternity which severs me from who I once was." Elrond held up one hand to forestall Arwen's outburst. "Nevertheless, I shall tarry in Middle-earth until it takes my very life. I cannot abandon the Free Peoples and sail away into the safety of Valinor, regardless of how much I urge others to do so. I am one of the Peredhil, and I would not leave my duty to the kin if Beren and Tuor undone."_

_Arwen__ hugged him gently, and kissed his cheek, before turning and slipping out of the library._

_The next morning, Elrond had led the column from Imladris, dressed in sombre green and black, with a sword at his side, and Vilya weighing heavy and baleful on a chain around his neck._

Now, the folk who had followed him were sailing further and further out into the Sundering Seas, where he could not yet accompany them, not in this life.

Elrond shifted his gaze inland, at the drifting filth and acrid pools. A few tears dampened his pale face as he cried again for the sullied earth, for both the peoples to which he was allied through blood, and for the whole wretched existence of the lands which he loved as much as life itself.

In the foulest terms which the languages of the Free Peoples possessed, he cursed Sauron and all his followers for the destruction of all that had been beautiful and pure.

Then, for one last time, Elrond turned his eyes to the turbulent waters of the Sundering Seas. Obliviously, he peered into the far distance, beyond the point where fast-darkening sky met grey sea, beyond the curve of the world, out beyond the boundaries of sight to where Valinor lay.

Almost as a benediction, Elrond whispered, "Namarie, meleth-nîn. Namarie, until I return from the Halls of Mandos." His voice broke. "Forgive me, and keep me in your heart, Celebrían."

With sudden vigour, Lord Elrond turned on his heel, and marched back down the hill, back towards the turmoil and panic of Middle-earth, determined to tread a course to Mordor itself if needs be, to struggle against the rising tide while he remained in these lands.

In the night sky, one solitary point of light broke through the clouds of Mordor. Earendil's star, Gil-Estel, burnished the sword which Elrond held aloft, while his defiant cry rang in the fetid air.

**********

Gil-Estel: Star of Hope, I believe (same thing as Earendil's star: Earendil bearing the Silmaril).

May all flamers grow upside down with their heads in the ground and their feet in the air like onions. Positive reviews are like finding Elrond on your doorstep.


	2. Valinor

**Desolation**

**Chapter Two.******

Finally finished this wretched thing, despite the best attempts of my computer.

Farewell: More stuff to try to make you like Celebrían *laughs evilly* - it's all part of my plan to take over the world (it's very late at night and I've been fighting with the computer for the last hour. When I take over the world, Microsoft's evil minions had better HIDE.)

LSB: I know – poor, poor Elrond *thinks of the film and begins to cry again* He really does carry all the burdens of the world. Oh, to be Celebrían.

Earelen: Oh, I don't know – the ending might surprise you, but it's definitely going to be a bumpy ride.

Tanathir: Thankies. I loved the interaction between Elrond and Arwen in the film and demand MORE. Hence (having heard the rumours about it), I just had to write that scene.

Psycofoxx, odyssey, Emmica – thank you, thank you, thank you *eeps happily*

**Summary:** A short interlude. In the Undying Lands Eärendil and Celebrían discuss the Sauron's return and Elrond's choice.

**A/N: **Next chapter will return to Elrond in Middle-earth, but I wanted a different perspective on the crisis, and I am still doing research for the wider plot line. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Celebrían wandered across the high meadow, her soft blue skirts brushing through the grass. The sunlight was warm and merry, and a faint breeze tugged at her silver-blond hair, but her cerulean eyes were pensively fixed on the eastern horizon.

When a solitary figure appeared in the distance, she did not even notice, engrossed as she was in her melancholic reflections.

The older Elf approached at a measured pace. In his dark hair shone the brilliance of all the stars and in his face was the great light which was before the Sun and the Moon, spilling from the Silmaril bound to his forehead.

"I bid you good afternoon, Lady Celebrían," he said pleasantly.

She turned hastily, expecting another, as she always did when she heard his voice. Her shoulders slumped almost imperceptibly when she beheld that ageless visage, but her sweet smile remained genuine as she stretched out both delicate hands to him in greeting.

"You remind me of him," she said in a voice like wind whispering through mallorn leaves.

"I shall pray to Elbereth for the day that I am able to stand before my son and see for myself how much truth you speak," he replied with amusement, although sombreness lingered in his face. 

"All Middle-earth stands on the brink of destruction," she stated quietly once they had walked in companionable peace for some minutes. Sudden love flooded her heart as she recognised her husband's inflections in her own voice. "The Shadow may even touch us here."

She paused.

"Today, Erestor arrived, and told me that Elrond remains in Middle-earth," she commented sadly. "When the news of the fall of the One Ring to the Enemy reached me, I feared that I would lose my beloved Elrond to the darkness, that he would feel duty-bound to remain in Middle-earth. But I still had hope – until this morning."

Her voice cracked, but she raised her chin defiantly, every inch the Lady of Lothlórien.

"Did you expect aught else from him?" Eärendil inquired.

"Nay," Celebrían's inflection was reflective. She reached up and absent-mindedly traced the scar which stood out against the pale skin of her temple: the last memento of her terrible capture so long ago. "I loved his dedication even before I loved him, and have done so through all these long years. But I fear for him; I fear that I shall not see him again for many an age; that he will pass to Mandos' care, and that I shall be left for long years without him, alone and filled with sadness as no other is in the Undying Lands."

Eärendil sank to the warm earth and Celebrían tranquilly sat beside him, but her hands moved unceasingly, ruthlessly shredding bundles of grass.

"Dear child," the Mariner suggested, memories of old grief tingeing his melodic voice and swiftly colouring his wind-blown features with great sadness, "I do not pretend to have fathomed the mind of Ilúvatar, but I shall at least say this: that few things in Arda are immutable. Do not despair of your husband; I may see my son again."

Celebrían cocked her head at him, smiling quizzically although her eyes swam with a flood of tears as deep as the Bruinen in full spate.

"What does the Mariner see in his far voyaging?"

"All Middle-earth is aflame, and much hope is fled, but many great and wondrous deeds may yet be done. In the darkness of Gorthaur, some lights may yet shine." He smiled, a look of wistful hope flickering across his face. "The Star-dome may live up to his name."

For a fleeting instant, Celebrían was cheered, remembering the ferocious valour of her husband, but then a sudden wave of fury overcame her, and she sprang to her feet, her long skirts swirling violently around her ankles.

"How dare that … that … Sauron? If I was there, I would, I would … Oh, Eru save me, I cannot think what I would do."

Fiery tears slipped from her eyes.

"Gorthaur has taken everything from me: Elrond, my sons, even my parents in Lothlórien. And Erestor will not speak more than a score of words to me of my daughter. Why is Arwen not here? What reason is there for her to tarry in Middle-earth?"

Eärendil sighed heavily, and, rising to his feet, faced her.

"That is not my tale to tell, nor Erestor's. That task falls to Elrond alone."

Celebrían whirled around, Vilya's blue fire burning brightly in her gaze. Her head thrown back, her arms cast wide, she stood tall and imposing among the wild flowers. Never had she looked more like her mother.

"You go too far, Eärendil son of Tuor," she snapped. "All is ruined in the Hither Lands. My mother, my father, my sons have in all likelihood already perished. My husband will soon follow them to the Halls of Mandos; yet you tell me to be hopeful. And now you refuse me news of my daughter, the only living being I shall love in the years to come. Once again, I tell you, you go too far." 

For a moment, he was shocked into silence, but them compassion overcame both pride and confusion.

Stepping closer to his daughter-in-law, he pulled her into a fatherly embrace. The figure of icy fury melted into his shoulder.

"I must apologise, Lord Eärendil," she sniffed into the thick cloth. "I am sorely grieved, and I long for Elrond, and now no-one will tell me why our Undomiel is not here."

Eärendil patted her back sympathetically, before settling once more onto the grass.

Celebrían sat back on her heels, regarding her father-in-law with miserable eyes.

"Child, they do not tell you because they fear to upset you at this time. I am afraid that the reticence of the Elves arriving from Middle-earth is my son's doing," he advised.

"Elrond…" she said with a watery chuckle."The foolish boy always did believe that he needed to protect me, that I would hate him if I did not. But ignorance only makes this pain worse. Will you not tell me?"

The Peredhel scrutinized her face deeply, reading the truth written there, then nodded in acquiescence.

"Arwen Undómiel has fallen in love with a mortal man, with Isildur's heir. It is for his sake that she will not forsake the Hither Lands."

"She has chosen the fate of Lúthien and of Elros," she whispered, awe-stricken.

Eärendil winced at the mention of his son even after these many ages, but merely replied, "Yes."

For a long time, there was silence. Celebrían fiddled with the cuff of her dress. He wondered what his daughter-in-law's reaction would be.

Finally, she raised her head, her face as pale as Ithil itself.

"Our Evenstar…" she marvelled. A sad but proud smile spread across her face. "Our brave little Evenstar… Is he a good man?"

"I believe he was," Eärendil replied curtly.

Celebrían's eyes widened in horror.

"A man … Erestor spoke of an Estel who stood at the Gates of Mordor with Elladan and Elrohir… Oh dear Eru, my poor children. My poor, poor Elrond. What agony he must be feeling at the awful deaths of so many. Oh, I wish I could comfort him!" she exclaimed.

Words failed both of them and they sat in the silence of the bereft, contemplating the wounds of the world and of their own souls, too profound and cruel to heal.

~*~*

Under the lazy afternoon sun, they meandered towards the road which ran east and west across the Undying Lands.

"I must help Erestor to settle the Elves who have arrived from Middle-earth. There is much to do for our people," Celebrían sighed.

"Indeed. Do not let hope fail in them," Eärendil replied, "nor in yourself. Namarie, Lady Celebrían of Imladris."

"Namarie, Lord Eärendil," she smiled.

The Mariner whistled to his horse, and began to ride away. As he passed from sight, she continued in a low voice, laden with emotion, "Namarie, Gil-Estel. Bring hope to my Elrond."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Star-dome: the meaning of Elrond's name.

Gorthaur: a name which the elves gave to Sauron.

~*~

Please review. If you don't, you never know, I might set the elven armies of the Second Age on you. On the other hand, I want them for my own *smirks*


	3. Revelations and Gifts

****

Desolation

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Chapter Three

Thanks for all the reviews. My muse lives on them.

Virtual chocolate and a big club to hit Swift with to Nemis for betaing this chapter.

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Elrond bound the wound on his arm, hissing in pain. He had hoped that the Shire at least would stand a little longer against the forces of darkness, and so had attempted to cross the fertile land. But he had found it desolate and the Little Folk in chains. Such had been his righteous anger at the latter that he had attacked one convoy of slavers, his bright blade slicing through muscle and bone alike. He had been successful, but although the Hobbits had escaped into the wilderness, the price of victory had been high for him. His arrows were spent and an orc scimitar had bitten into his sword arm, cutting nearly to the bone. He prayed that there would be no infection, but there seemed little hope as he gazed at the red blood soaking the sleeve of his tunic. He felt insidious weakness creeping through him, sapping his Elven resistance.

"Well, meleth-nîn," he murmured to his departed wife. "Perhaps we shall meet again sooner than I thought, if Mandos takes pity on me."

Struggling, biting his lip to stifle a cry of pain, he scaled an oak which stood in the midst of the scorched landscape, a hollow reminder of better times. Curling into the nook where the branches met, the Elf wrapped his cloak round his shivering form and dropped into an uneasy doze, too tired to seek the paths of elven dreams.

His slumber was filled with fearful visions in which featureless faces and nameless horrors leered at him, and he was driven into back and back into the abyss of darkness. But this was to be nothing to the fear which awakened him. Huddled into his musty shelter, soaked to the skin with foul rain, he wondered what could have roused him. Just as he was reassuring himself that it was nothing but a nightmarish vision, the touch on his mind came again, and red light exploded before his eyes. Vilya seemed to burn with a terrible fire against the skin of his chest, as if its power was seeking to consume him, body and soul, and fell voices whispered in his ears. When the moment passed, he was left with hideous knowledge which seemed more deadly than anything which he had ever known before.

__

He has the Ring of Fire, and Mithrandir is dead … or worse. Indeed then there is no hope for us.

For an instant, the treacherous suggestion that he might still take ship across the Sundering Seas spoke to him in a coaxing voice, and he was sorely tempted.

__

Nay, I cannot. I shall go to the Halls of Awaiting soon enough, but I must go knowing I have done all I could. I shall not desert my kin or my lands in the hour of their greatest need, no matter how fruitless my quest may be.

Lowering himself from the tree, ignoring the spasms of pain which wracked him, he bound his injured arm closer to his chest, and, re-sheathing his sword, resumed his progress with faltering steps. 

Although he knew that the Ring of Adamant still rested in the care of Galadriel, he could not rely upon the waning strength of the Golden Wood alone.

__

I must seek Thranduil in Mirkwood, and the Men of Dale, for surely Gondor the proud no longer stands. For the sake of Isildur who cut the One from his finger, the Dark Lord will have reserved special vengeance for the Kingdoms of the Men of the West.

~*~

The first light of Anar crept over the eastern horizon, illuminating a scene of absolute destruction. Not a green thing grew as far as the eye could see; the East Road was crawling with companies of orcs; the corpses of men, women and children littered the ground like leaves in autumn. Elrond realised that he had to choose the only route which still lay open to him … that which he had deemed least safe. Squaring his shoulders, he passed under the menacing eaves of the Old Forest.

Immediately, all the screams and hoarse shouts of jubilation which echoed around the hills were cut off, but the silence of the trees seemed no friendlier, and he shuddered as a chill coursed down his spine.

__

How much easier would this be if Vilya was still on my finger.

"But then I there would be no need for this journey," he laughed mirthlessly. "In the absence of the prop which has borne me for so many years, I must turn again to the skills I once knew."

Determinedly, he directed his thoughts to a far off year in which he had wandered the wilds with his brother, young even in the reckoning of mortal Men, making his way to Sirion with nothing but his own mind and that of his twin.

The Elf chose a stout stick of oak from the ground for a staff, and, leaning on it, began to trudge through the forest, ignoring the deceitful path which he realised would only lead him to peril.

After walking for what seemed like an eternity, he espied a patch of greenery which did not seem as inimical as that which surrounded it. Hunkering down beside it, he saw that it was a thick growth of athelas, and sighed in relief, cutting as much of it as he could with his short knife.

Unwinding the crude bandages on his arm, he found his wound rawer than ever, its ragged sides gaping. Gritting his teeth, he placed a few of the leaves on the gash, noticing the white of the bone showing through the flesh. Redoing the knot, which secured the strips of fabric encompassing the injury, he drew a wafer of lembas from his pack. Ignoring his nausea, he began to nibble on it, determined to retain his strength for the battles ahead.

~*~

Elrond had been attempting to cross the hostile expanse of woodland for days, although it was hard to tell how much time had passed, for here there was neither night nor day, but only a shadow-land which reigned eternal.

He had tried to sing the jaunty sailors melodies which he had learnt in the Balar of his youth, but their unthinking jollity had only made him throw his impromptu staff far into the undergrowth with despairing contempt. He had begun to sing the Lay of Leithian in its entirety, but it had brought tears to his eyes for his daughter and slain foster-son. Now, he settled upon the Noldolantë, his powerful voice rising above the sinister sighing of the trees.

"Very beautiful, Master Elf," a voice whispered in his ear.

Spinning round, Elrond reached for the hilt of his sword, and then exhaled in relief at the sight which met his eyes.

"Iarwain Ben-Adar." It could be no other.

"Aye, I am Tom Bombadil indeed." The merry face crinkled up at him. "What is an Elf doing in my woods?"

"I go to war."

"To war? Then 'tis a sorry quest which brings you to old Tom."

Sudden fury rose within the elf-lord's mind, not so much directed at the strange spirit before him as at himself for the failure he feared in his future.

"There are foul deeds afoot," he growled. "I say to you, Eldest and Fatherless, that they should concern all Middle-earth. Is it not foolishness to name this day merely 'sorry'?"

To his surprise, Tom reached out and lifted Vilya on its chain until the ring sparkled in a beam of sunlight.

"That is not for Tom to say," he laughed. "Tom cares for his woods and his hills, but the weight of the world rests on the shoulders of he who bears the Ring of Air. Now come, you need a good night's rest and a hearty supper."

Unwilling yet unable to resist, questions whirling through his mind, Elrond followed him until they reached the house standing on its own beyond the trees.

"Now, I am afraid that Goldberry is abroad this night, but I can offer you tea and good food." He pressed the Elf down into a chair, singing merry nonsense to himself as he dolled out rich sweet buttermilk and honey into bowls, accompanied by warm slices of bread.

Elrond, having eaten very little despite his scarce rations for the past days, sat back and looked at his host.

"You do not have the appetite of a Hobbit, I see," Tom chuckled.

A closed expression came over the face of his guest, but a single tear trickled from one starlit eye.

"They are gone," the Elf whispered. "They were taken by Gorthaur and have left this world."

"Is that so? I shall miss their good-humour." Tom Bombadil seemed only mildly perturbed, despite his sorrow.

Elrond leant forward, his elbows resting on his knees.

"For their sake, will you tell me what you meant when you said that weight of the world rests on me?"

"I said that? Oh, yes I did. Well, I meant nothing but what I said. The son of the Evening Star must do many things before the end."

"The end? What end?" The Elf was perplexed.

"The end? Well, that would be telling would it not?" He sat back, apparently satisfied, and Elrond was suddenly overcome with helpless laughter. However, he soon felt his strength wane and collapsed against the back of the chair, his sight darkened and his breath coming in hoarse gasps. He sensed strong arms lifting him up and guiding him to the bed.

~*~

When he awoke in the morning, the Lord of Imladris felt much refreshed. With a start he found himself clad in a simple woollen nightshift, his now clean clothes folded by the side of his bed.

Rising slowly, so as not to strain his arm, he dressed himself, and emerged into the main room, blinking in the sunlight flooding through the open windows.

"So you are awake?" Tom said, stirring the porridge briskly.

"Yes, and I shall be away in under an hour."

"That would not be wise." The mysterious creature's face was, for once, serious. "I saw how you were last night. You need to rest."

"My strength may not be as of old, but my resolve remains. If this task is appointed to me, I shall not tarry."

With a shrug, Tom acquiesced, and soon the Elf was walking through the thick green grass, carefully avoiding the barrows where unquiet spirits awaited reckless travellers.

~*~

The days had been long since Elrond last slept in a bed, but he pressed on, climbing the steep path to Imladris. He recognised his folly in leaving his last surviving child in a place of such danger, and meant to send her to Círdan in the Havens, even if she would not depart Middle-earth.

As he rounded a bend, he found a knife pressed against the nape of his neck and cursed his inattentiveness.

"Who would come to the valley of the cleft in such times?" a familiar voice asked.

"'Tis I, mellon-iaur."

Glorfindel did not recognise the bedraggled wanderer, whose tangled dark locks fell around a gaunt face. He could not imagine who among those he knew who would climb the path, his clothes ragged and torn, fresh blood staining the cloth of his sleeve. Cautiously, he circled his prisoner, clamping that thin chin between his long fingers. Grey eyes stared at him hopelessly. His blade dropped from nerveless fingers.

"My lord."

From somewhere in the depths of his being, the dishevelled Peredhel dredged up a chuckle.

"Indeed, 'tis I, my friend."

The golden-haired elf threw his arms round his friend's neck.

"We thought you dead."

"Not yet, Glorfindel; not yet."

Together, they arrived at the house, where Arwen stood awaiting the return of her protector. Her eyes flickered to his companion and widened in recognition.

"Ada," she yelled joyously, embracing him impulsively before pulling back. "You must sleep and heal."

"Not yet, iell-nîn. First I must speak with you." He guided her towards the study. The buildings seemed somehow tarnished, decayed, although they were as beautiful as ever. The empty corridors echoed with the voices of those who had departed over the sea.

Elrond settled in his old chair, regarding his daughter with wearied eyes. Something was different about her, but he knew not what it was.

He decided that the best approach was the most direct.

"You must go to the Havens, with all who remain in Imladris. I shall ask Glorfindel to accompany you."

"I told you: I shall not cross the sea." She raised her chin stubbornly.

"Nay, I do not ask this of you," he responded, "although I would if I thought you would heed my pleas. I merely ask that you go to a place of more safety."

"Then I shall do as you bid, Ada."

Elrond was surprised at her acquiescence, until she uttered her next words.

"I have something to tell you, but I … I fear your wrath."

The elf-lord went to kneel by her chair.

"I have no wrath for you, iell-nîn. I reserve all that for Gorthaur," he swore.

She raised her sorrowing eyes to his.

"I am with child. Before he left, Estel and I … we … we decided that we needed a memory against the darkness."

Despite his fatherly protectiveness, Elrond was carried back nearly three thousand years to a night on which he and Celebrían, although not yet married, had pledged their love, body and mind. Quashing his instinct to rage against such liberties taken with his daughter, he smiled faintly.

"Then you have something to remember him by."

"I do. I believe that it is a boy: I shall name him Eldarion, child of the Elves, in memorial of my people, but he shall also be Telcontar, for that foolish name which the Men of the north gave to Aragorn."

"Then I must give him such things as will remind him of both." Despite his protesting muscles, the lord rose and, clutching his daughter's hand, made his way from the room, leading her to the place where the most secret treasures of Imladris were kept.

With shaking hands, he gave her the sceptre of Annuminas.

"This I refused Aragorn, bidding him to earn it." His voice broke, and silent tears began to roll down his cheeks. "If I could take back those words, I would, for he was truly the son of my heart, and I would that he were by your side."

Wordless, consumed by her own grief, Arwen smoothed away his tears.

"And now I give you this." Elrond reached up to grasp the mithril band which had been his for long Ages, feeling it come free from his knotted hair. "May he wear it as a crown alongside the helm of Gondor."

"You should not give this. It is yours to bear."

"My time here is not long. I shall perish in this quest." He suddenly felt it deeply, this sense of impending death which had crept up upon him. "Therefore I give this as a gift for those who come after me, in the hope that all that was shall not be forgotten."

"Do not speak such words," she sobbed.

He caressed her dark head with a trembling hand.

"Despite the pain they cause, they must be spoken, for they ring true. We will not meet again until the ending of Arda."

And together they wept for the cruel fate which had crept upon them, stealing the world they knew.

~*~

But again, in the morning, Elrond felt the tug of duty upon him, and, although his wounds had not yet healed, prepared to depart. He knew that deathly night was approaching, and felt his heartbeat grow rapid and shallow, but refused to show any weakness.

__

If this be my fate, so be it.

Levering himself up on to the sturdy pony with his free arm, he looked down at his daughter, whose cheeks were blotchy with tears.

"Namarie, Undómiel. May you be a light in the darkness," he whispered, before pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

With a last wave to all who remained of his folk, he rode off, sternly quelling his cry of despair until they could no longer hear him.

Arwen pressed her fingers to her lips.

"Namarie, Ada, until the ending of the world."

TBC

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meleth-nîn – my love.

Namarie – farewell.

Ada – father, daddy (shortening of Sindarin 'Adar' – father).

iell-nîn – my daughter.

mellon-iaur – old friend.

Noldolantë – the tale of the fall of the Noldor, composed by Maglor.


	4. Unexpected Meetings

                                                                        **Desolation**

**Chapter Four**

Thanks once again for all the reviews.  My muse is currently coating them in chocolate, but won't promise to share them with me.  Greedy muse *grins*

Nemis: thanks for betaing this.

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*This is the prison of the will: that what we fear to do and what we know we must become one and the same and we entrap ourselves.  We are prisoners of duty; thralls of a fate which we serve willingly.  We go into the eternal night, knowing that we can do naught else… But with what sorrow do we go…*

Elrond's melancholy reflections were broken by a noise so faint that it would be inaudible to all other ears, but his senses were still true while his body failed, as if he was being burnt down to the essentials of being. He was no longer in the high passes of the Misty Mountains, but their eastern foothills.  He had considered himself lucky to escape confrontations with the bands of orcs which usually infested the range, until he realised what other battles now occupied these foul creatures.

But now there was something moving in the short grass, creeping among the rocks like a plague…

Drawing his sword, abandoning his laden pony which had wandered away, he began to run, keeping himself low among the tumbled boulders.  He was silent as a shadow under the moonlight, using every skill to keep himself undetected, but fortune did not favour him, and the beam of a single star caught on the mirrored edge of his sword, as brilliant as the light of the sun.

A curse was uttered in a strange tongue, and he soon found himself pursued relentlessly through the broken country.  He ducked into a riverbed, overhung with bowed trees, but the Men were too knowledgeable in the ways of the land.  Normally he would be able to outrun them with ease, but each breath he drew was more laboured than the last, rattling in his pounding ears.  His weakened limbs nearly collapsed under him as he stumbled down the narrow ravine, thorns scraping his flesh through his battered clothing.

His ankle turned in a pot-hole, and he crashed to the ground, nearly blacking out as his whole frame was jolted by the impact.

Then they were upon him, pinning him to the ground, more of them than he had ever imagined.  His head was dragged up by a rough hand buried in the tangled hair at the nape of his neck, his chin rasping against the gravel until it bled.

"What is stupid man doing in our land?" a voice demanded in the Common Speech, heavily accented and broken.

"I shall not tell you."

"We see."

Elrond's hands were caught roughly and bound behind his back.  He whimpered in unendurable pain as cold fire lanced up his injured arm, but he was given no respite, harsh hands gripping his elbows and propelling him forward.

It was a long march, and hard, through the grim depths of the night.  Elrond did not find much comfort when he realised that the Men were speaking a dialect of the Easterling tongue which he understood.

//Curse him for a foul spy.//

//Aye, but just think what our … master will say.  Think that he is of the Fey Ones?//

A shout of mirthless laughter.

//Nay, he is no elf.  Just look at him … the foul scrap.//

Elrond was, however, glad that they did not recognise him for an Elf.

At length, a camp drew into sight, and his eyes widened in horror.  This was no mere wandering band.  Rank upon rank of rents huddled in the shelter of the mountain, armed Men going to and fro among them.  This was an army preparing for war, ready to march out at any moment.  He was brought to the centre of the encampment and flung before the feet of a tall Man with a proud face and the skin of a great bear wrapped round his shoulders.

//What is this?//

//A prisoner, my liege.  We found him skulking on the pass which leads into the mountains.//

"What have you to say for yourself?" The Easterling chief switched to the Common Speech with more fluency than his underlings.

"I was not skulking."  Elrond raised his chin defiantly.  "I would know by what right the minions of Sauron claim this land for their own."

"Why, by the right of conquest," the Man laughed, but there was something strange in his demeanour.  "What other right is there at this time?"

He turned to the waiting soldiers.

//You may depart.  I shall interrogate him myself.//

From the corner of his eye, he saw the Elf stiffen.

"Oh ho, so you understand our speech, stranger?"

"A little," Elrond admitted grudgingly.

"Well then, you will know that I shall have no mercy upon you if you lie to me."  He pulled his prisoner to his feet and pushed him towards the tent.  

He removed his great shaggy cloak with its overhanging hood, and the Elf saw that he was strangely fair, with piercing eyes, the eyes of a man who could be ruthless to his enemies yet unfailingly loyal to his friends.  The kneeling figure shuddered at the thought of where that terrible loyalty might be bestowed.

"I am Ulrang, and these…" He waved his hand to indicate the busy folk beyond the walls of canvas.  "…are my people.  Now speak truly: who are you, and what is your business here?"

"I am Bëor."  The lie slipped easily from his lips.

"I said you should not lie to me." A dagger was laid against his cheek.  "I am not so lacking in wits as you might think me, Master Elf."  He chuckled at the expression of surprise on the other's face.  "Aye, I know you for what you are.  Your ears may be hidden, but your bearing betrays you, even in defeat, so tell me your name."

"I am Elurin."

The Man's eyes narrowed, and Elrond wondered if he had just forfeited his life.

"That is not the truth, but 'tis near enough, I reckon."  The menacing blade was withdrawn.  "What brings you here?"

"I go seeking my kinsfolk in the east," came the cautious reply.

"Always so chary.  Do you seek them merely so you can flee to your masters in the West?"

"I go to war against the Great Deceiver.  You would be wise to take me to your fell lord."

Elrond decided that if he had to fall, he should not do so at the hand of a servant: that he should make one last stand against the heart of darkness.

"Why should I do that, little princeling?"

"I am sure that he would repay you well in spoils for me," the Elf's clear voice rang with determination.

"I would take nothing he gave.  You have called him the Deceiver.  Are you so arrogant as to believe that you are the only ones to name him so?"

The Peredhel regarded him with surprise.

"Aye, I see you are.  Do you think that all the peoples of the East look to this new age with delight?" He chuckled bitterly.  "What use do you think he will have for us once he is the master of these lands?  We will be as grain before fire, as dust before the wind.  We are proud, yea, and we do not like the Elves, nor the Betrayers who came from over the sea with cruel swords to rape us of our lands, but we will fight for ourselves against he who has held us in bondage for long years."

"And so you prove your disloyalty to him by holding me in chains like a bond-slave?" Elrond gulped in fear, although his face remained calm, as the man approached with his dagger held out.  However, he soon found the ropes binding his hands sliced through with one quick motion.

"This I do as a token of my good faith.  Do not make me regret it."

Elrond stood slowly, rubbing his chafed wrists.

"Then what do you want from me?"

"Your help."

"I have no forces; I am alone.  I have no help to give."

"You are, I think, a great lord.  Surely there are many who would follow you."

"Are there many left who could?" The Elf shook his head.  "Nay, I go not to victory but to defeat."

"Then why do you go at all?" Ulrang inquired.

"Honour," his unwilling guest snapped.  "'Tis better that I do this and fail than to let Sauron win by default."

The Man threw back his head and laughed deeply.  "Then we go for the same purpose, stranger.  Now, come, drink with me."

He reached for a wineskin which lay on the makeshift table and poured the ruby liquid into two cups.

Elrond sniffed the proffered goblet dubiously.

"You fear poison, I see.  But think you not that it would be far easier to call the men who await my orders and kill you with a clean blow?" The Easterling took a deep swig of the goblet before pressing it into Elrond's hand.  "You trust me no more than I do you, but these are dread times, and we must find allies where we may."

The Elf sipped at the wine, finding it heavy and sweet, without taint.  For the first time, he began to scrutinize his surroundings.  The tent was almost bare of decoration, its canvas walls worn with many years' use.  The bed was little more than a pile of furs, across which was thrown a sword, its blade fine and well wrought, but notched and dulled.  It suited Ulrang well, this soldier's abode, and made Elrond trust him all the more: here was someone with little taste for pomp and grandeur, who lived as his men did.

"Well, Elurin." There was a slightly sarcastic emphasis on his name.  "What are we to do?" 

Although Elrond was unwilling to disclose his plans, he decided he had not much choice.

"I go to Mirkwood and the Lonely Mountain seeking allies.  After that, I shall march to Mordor with as much haste as I can."

"And we are to go with you?"

"I do not think that those I seek would much appreciate your presence." Elrond watched in amusement as his host bridled at the implied insult.

"So you deny us the right to play a part in this battle?"

"Nay," he laughed.  "Fear not, you shall find glory before the end.  What say you that we meet four weeks hence at the Long Lake?"

Ulrang considered the proposition.

"Very well."

They sat thus in conference until the first glimmers of dawn crept in through the slit in the tent, neither yet sure what to make of his ally, but both knowing that they had little choice.

As they stepped outside, shivering in the chill air, a man approached, leading a familiar pony, and spoke with his lord in a low voice.

"Is this yours, Elurin?" Ulrang asked.  "It was found grazing nearby."

"Yes."  Elrond swung himself up into the saddle.  "Farewell, then, Ulrang of the East.  I hope we will meet again, and you will be as true to your promises as I shall be to mine."

The Man growled.

"Do not doubt me, little one, for I have more to lose in this venture than you.  No home in the Far West awaits me."

And so the reluctant allies parted, each to their own role in the coming war.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~


	5. Mirkwood

                                                                                    **Desolation **

**Chapter Five**

Thanks to Nemis for betaing *offers chocolate fudge*

As always, reviews are wonderful things *bows to all who have taken the time to review*

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Elrond swayed in the saddle, his mind wandering feverishly along the paths of delirium.  The images which danced before his eyes were more vivid to him than the scrubby bushes which dotted the wayside and the distant blur of Mirkwood.  He saw all those he had known and lost … his sons, their bodies contorted in death … Maglor, screaming in agony as the Silmaril burnt his hands … Gil-galad struck down on the field of battle … Celebrían, her face little more than a patch of white as the grey ship slipped out into the Gulf of Lune…

His arm was on fire, deadly pain shooting through it, impaling him, and he swayed in the saddle, twisting one hand into the pony's mane to prevent himself from falling.

He had lost track of the days now, for they seemed to mean little in this time…

Few things did … only the burning ring, and the rough horsehair beneath him, and the fire before him…

"Why am I doing this anyway?" he whispered.  "Tell me, O Eärendil, for what purpose do I go to my doom?  For 'tis sure that I shall save none by my death…  Mayhap, would be simpler if I just lay down here and let myself pass to Mandos, forsaking this folly."

Exhausted, he slipped from the horse's back and curled up by the track, pulling his knees up to his chest, surrendering to the pain coursing through him, to the numbness which was creeping up from his feet, to the quiet death which enfolded him…

As if in answer to his despairing inquiry, thunder rumbled in the east, and the lowering sky darkened still further, seeming both to threaten and cajole him to pursue his quest.

"Yet perhaps through my death, others still will find the will to resist evil.  Even if they do not succeed, their efforts may buy them freedom in spirit," Elrond answered himself, raising his head, grit coating his wearied face.  "For this, I must fight, even to the end.  So, you see, Sauron, you old fool, neither fear nor the weakness of the flesh will cow me while I still remember how much I hate you."

The strength of his fury momentarily dulled the nausea pulsing through him and clouding his vision.  With a burst of desperate energy, he clambered back up onto the pony and spurred her into a gallop, eating up the distance between him and Mirkwood.  Almost uncanny exhilaration thrilled through him, burning itself into his muscles and setting his limbs ablaze.  

He cried out in forlorn jubilation, "Behold, behold, the light does not yet die, and the sun has not gone down in the West upon the endless seas.  Arise, arise, O peoples of Middle-earth, arise and ride to victory."

It was almost as if some other presence had taken over his languid limbs and parched throat, uttering some rallying cry from beyond the Sun and the Moon to the empty lands.  For an instant, as he crouched low over the animal's neck, urging her on, his wild hair flapping in the wind, he felt the touch of another's mind against his own, and his hands tightened convulsively.

"Celebrían."  The single word escaped his lips without volition, for it was her he had felt, fragile as leaf, sword-strong as she had ever been.  Amid all the turmoil of war, the grief of loss and the weakness of his own flesh, he had lost that fragile, elusive thread, snapped by the winds of chance and fate, and to sense it again was a great joy which penetrated even his dazed mind.  He had not even realised that it was gone until he felt it once more.

"Celebrían," he called out to her, his mind yearning for the most fleeting of contacts, the subtle hint of her perfume drifting in the breeze.  But there was no response, not even the barest flicker of consciousness.  "Celebrían!"  
  


His mind remained as empty as ever, bereft of the sole crutch on which he dared to lean.

"Where are you, meleth-nîn?  Does looming death rob me even of this?"

With barely comprehending relief, he saw the blur of Mirkwood ahead of him, its grim eves darkening the land.  Urging his sturdy mount into a final sprint, Elrond came at last to the borders of the great wood.  He slid from the pony, clutching at her coat as he swayed with exhaustion and emotion.  Fumbling for the catches, he managed to remove the packs, and rubbed her nose.

"Farewell, little one, for we shall not meet again."  He reached into his pocket and brought out the apple which he had been unable to eat for lunch.  "Run far and wide, and do not return to this place.  Mirkwood is not for any of your kind.  Run to the grasslands of the east.  There may you find respite for some time and repayment for your services."

With a last scrub at her scraggy forelock, he turned away resolutely, facing the gloom before him.  Elrond had been to Mirkwood countless times before, but never had it seemed so foreboding.  Branches bowed over the path like the scrawny arms of cadavers, clutching at his torn cloak.  Thorns snarled in his breeches, ripping long scarlet stripes down the pale flesh of his legs.  But, most of all, a cloying silence clung around him, making every inch of air fetid with its stench of impending death.

Despite his watchfulness, as the days wore on fever dulled Elrond's wits.  As he tramped along early one morning, a grotesquely hairy leg grasped him round the torso and, before he knew it, tugged him from the path as if he was no more than a blade of grass bending before the winds of autumn.

Looking up, he gazed into eight hideous faceted eyes and a foul fanged mouth from which saliva trailed in noxious strands.  With lethargic arms Elrond dragged his sword from its scabbard and swung it at the beast.  It recoiled from the flailing steel, hurt even by the presence of the blade forged in Gondolin for the son of Idril Celebrindal, and the Elf smiled wryly at this small victory, but soon triumph turned to disaster.

There was a shift in the shadows, and then a monstrous shape emerged, followed by another and yet another, flanked by terrible minions.  Legions of malicious eyes peered from the shadows; legions of foul limbs marched forward, intent on their prey.

Deadly fear penetrated the cocoon of dizziness which surrounded Elrond and he lashed out with his sword, bringing it round in a clean arc to cleave one creeping limb from its lumbering body.  As the hideous black leg soared into the air he ducked and began to run as fast as he could, ignoring the protesting pain of his body in his desperation.

Unfortunately he was blinded by the sweat dripping into his eyes and he stumbled directly into the clutches of another of the vile creatures.  Before he could even raise his blade he found himself entangled in sticky strands which clung to him, binding his arms to his sides ruthlessly.  A gaping maw filled with razor-sharp teeth loomed over him, emitting a foul stench, and he was dragged along the forest floor, his head colliding ceaselessly with tree roots and half-exposed boulders.

Bruised and bloodied, clinging to consciousness with the last fragments of his once-formidable strength, Elrond did not notice the silent shadows until they fired upon the macabre hunting party.  Keen arrows embedded themselves in the evil scarlet eyes, drawing torrents of reeking black blood from the ruptured sockets.

As the giant spiders milled in confusion, forgetting their trussed prey, a trio of Sindar warriors leapt from the trees, howling with rage at their age-old enemies, swiping at flailing legs and massive lumbering bodies with the precision of hatred.

Once the spiders had retreated, the leader surveyed the body lying crumpled among the leaves.

"Why has some foolish Man attempted to cross Mirkwood at this time?  Now we have one more corpse to bury."  Despite his brusque manner, he knelt down, brushing the tangled hair back from the face which was a mass of fresh bruises.  

"An Elf!" he breathed as he caught a glimpse of the leaf-shaped ear.  Swiftly, he sought a pulse and found it, weak and failing.  "He lives.  Quick, we must return to the palace as soon as possible, or he will pass to Mandos.  And the king will certainly wish to know why a stranger from west of the Misty Mountains comes to Mirkwood in these dark days."

Hefting the injured Noldo over his shoulder, he started off into the gathering gloom.

TBC

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	6. Fire and Ash

                                                                                                **Desolation**

**Chapter Six**

Everyone who reviewed has been absolutely wonderful.  Please keep going, before my muse …. Aaaaaaaaaagh :)

And to all you wonderful people on LJ … I can't even say how much support you've been.

And all the cookies in the world to Nemis for betaing this.

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Dizzy spots danced before his eyes, flashing so brilliantly that he wished he could turn away, yet even when he tried, there they were, taunting him.  Beyond them, he glimpsed a lazy golden blur, dancing to and fro.  As he watched it, swamped with a lethargy which made it impossible to move, it seemed to coalesce, to become brighter, and brighter, more and more dangerous, until there it was, a jewel beyond all the reckoning of Elves and Men.  Its radiant brightness almost blinded him as he gazed upon it, the Silmaril glinting on a dark headland, overlooking the tumbled waves of the Sundering Seas, red fires raging against the night, held tight against the breast of a woman in whose eyes lurked a fearful sorrow.  Suddenly, it was imperative that he reach out – that he must grasp that light in which so much hope would be contained … he had to … he would.  His fingertips brushed it, seeking, seeking, so near, so very near…

"Hold, mellon, hold."  Slender fingers clamped around his wrist, drawing his hand back.  He tried to break free, angry tears starting in his eyes at that loss of grace, but he could not, his wearied muscles would not obey him…

Elrond dropped back to the pillows, breathing hard, and only then, gradually, did he begin to see with truly lucid sight, and realised that the golden blur for which he had reached was not the jewel of Fëanor, but Thranduil's long hair, falling, with unusual carelessness, around his mantled shoulders.  Yet that vision, that abrupt certainty of knowledge would haunt him for many a night…

"I am in Mirkwood?" he guessed, aware of the rustiness of his voice, so unused to speech with another creature beside the pony he had set free.

"Aye, you are.  Welcome, son of Eärendil, in the hour of need which is not ours alone."

The desperation of his mission flooded back to him, and Elrond attempted to rise, forcing his abused body to resist its own exhaustion.

"I must go … I must…"

"You must go nowhere," Thranduil answered.  "Mellon, there is no hope to be found in your death.  The burden that you bear is yours alone, and in your strength lies the strength of the Elves."

"Why this unwonted solicitude?" Elrond barked, swinging his legs with painful slowness over the edge of the bed, despite the nausea which rose within him.  "When all is lost, what matters it to you that one more of the accursed Noldor should meet his fate in these dark days?  One more of the peredhil?"

"You are not the only one to have lost those dearest to your heart, Lord of Imladris."  The golden-haired elf turned his head away, blinking back his own tears.  "Should not we put aside old hatreds, yea, even the slayings of kin by kin, and remember only our righteous fury, our shared grief?"

The half-elf stared, recalling only now, so lost had he been in his own sorrow, that he had sent the Prince of Mirkwood to his doom. 

"I … I am sorry.  I thought not of it … forgive me…"  

The king stood, and Elrond noticed for the first time that he was not dressed in the finery which had been his accustomed garb for so many long years, but as a soldier, a scout under his own command, in raiment of dull green and grey, a sword strapped to his side.

"There is nothing to forgive, for Morgoth's music is loud in these times, and in all things there is much discord."  He paused, gathering his thoughts.  "I grieve with thee, Elrond, for that which is lost and can never be regained."

"And I with thee, Thranduil."  For a scant heartbeat, the two old rivals simply looked upon one another.  "Now, help me out of this damned bed before I perish from exasperation.  I perceive that I am not as filthy as I was…" he trailed off.  "Your men found me?  Greenwood the Great stands yet against the darkness?"

"Aye, that we do, though I think not for long.  But as yet, we are safe here.  For a full sennight we have nursed you, and my entire realm has prayed to Elbereth for your help."  As he spoke, he reached out and touched the ring which still dangled on its chain around its owner's neck, burning with a grim fire.  The Master of Rivendell recoiled instinctively, raising one hand to ward off the threat.  "Nay, nay, Elrond.  I covet this not, although I shall not deny that once it was in my mind and in my heart that it should have been mine to have and to hold.  Cannot we forget the things of old, for they are sped away, their light extinguished by the darkness which falls upon us as the pall of death?"

"I do.  But it is hard in these days not to protect even the accursed flame which burns me to cinders.  Long have I borne this trust, but never has it seemed so heavy nor so cruel as now."  Elrond flexed his shoulders, finding them free of the ache which had suffused them in the days he had wandered in the wilderness.  His head, too, felt clearer, the paths of thought and deed more certainly laid out before him.

"I thank you for the skill and care of those who have watched over me, mellon-iaur," he said with a small smile.  "I feel now that I … aaaa…"

He had attempted to uncurl his shield-arm, only to be overwhelmed by a wave of pain.  The peredhel pulled the sleeve of his nightshirt up to reveal the bandaged wound to his aching limb, the wrappings already permeated by thick, scarlet blood.

"This should have healed.  It should not be thus."

"I fear … I fear…"  Thranduil stammered, and Elrond recalled that he had never seen the other Elf so daunted by mere words.  "I fear that this wound will not heal.  There is no poison that I can tell, nor any shard embedded therein.  I am afraid that some vestige of the blood of Men has come to the fore in you, and that it is infected."

Elrond staggered upright, clutching at the furniture, and made his way to the large mirror which adorned one wall.  Gazing upon his own reflection, he reached out to touch the wan vision he beheld.  Dark hair, once again free of the filth of the trail, accentuated preternaturally pale skin stretched taut over his cheekbones.  Eyes, darker and more foreboding than the wings of the storm, stared out of hollow sockets.  But what frightened him most was the translucency of his whole being.

"Mayhap you are right my friend," he sighed, turning back to the other.  "My human blood may mean that my healing has been delayed.  Yet there is more than that…"

But whatever he might have been about to say was drowned out as a young Elf rushed into the room, his face ashen.

"Fire, my liege, fire!  The woods are alight and the creatures come upon us out of the dark places…"  
  


In an instant, both elder Elves were taut with command.

"Is there a way out?"

"Marshall all our folk and lead them through the tunnels, north-east to the edge of the wood.  Do it now!"

"Will you…?"

"I shall be there to lead them, but if I am not, lead them yourself!"

As the messenger of doom departed, leaving in his wake only the tang of burning trees, Elrond began to search desperately for clothes to wear, something, anything rather than a nightshirt.

"Here."  Thranduil shoved a tunic in a shade of muddy brown and a pair of breeches at him.  Tugging them on, the peredhel shoved his feet into boots and ran towards the door, his heart hammering at this unlooked-for assault.

"Do not forget this."  The king was by his side, thrusting the sword into his hand, its belt dangling on the ground.  There was no time to stop, no time to make sure he had a cloak, but he buckled his weapon to his side as he ran, shifting it until it rested easily at hand.

The halls of the palace were filled with Elves darting hither and thither, snatching up prized possessions, their faces filled with panic, trying to salvage what they might of their lives even as they fell into ruin.

"Curse it, curse it by the name of all the Valar.  We should have moved sooner.  I should have…"

"Things are as they are," Elrond reminded him, despite the sharp pain as a scurrying figure slammed against him. "It falls to us only to make of them what we can."

"Nay, Angilliath, nay, you cannot return for that."  Thranduil bodily dissuaded a maiden who was attempting to search for her marriage gifts.  "There is no time to waste on such trifles."

Despite the urgency of the situation, Elrond almost smiled at the king who had once prided himself on his collection of gemstones.  But then, in the midst of such darkness, all other things were to be forgotten.

Together, side by side as they had never been before, the Sindar king and he who might have been king of the Noldor raced to the head of the milling crowd.  Together they led them through the twisting, turning passageways, carved deep into the bones of the earth.

As they rounded the last corner, glad of the moonlight shimmering dimly ahead of them, a hulking figure blocked the light, then another, and another, their terrible weapons raised.

"A trap! Back, back, fall back, I tell you," Thranduil yelled, his voice harsh with fury.

"No."  Elrond grasped his shoulder tightly.  "No.  The flames are behind us.  Better sword than fire."

After a moment's hesitation, the king nodded.

"Onwards.  Do not falter, do not fail."

With one fluid movement, they unsheathed their swords.  The battle was brief yet bloody, and in those narrow confines, many fell to the wrath of the orcs, women and children both.  But there was no retreat, for the vicious fire encroached further and further with each heartbeat, licking at the wooden shoring of the tunnel.

Brilliant steel flashed, cleaving heads from bodies, thudding into hideously deformed limbs, the molten metal of Gondolin, forged for the king's heir, searing black flesh.  Scarlet and raven merged in one tumultuous wave of anger, from which there could be no escape.

Raising his sword high, Elrond cried aloud, his voice re-echoing, frantic in the defence of the girl beside him even as she fell.  The knife of an elf crazed by battle nicked his shoulder, tearing through the soft fabric, but he paid it no attention, moving swiftly and surely to attack the orc which now crouched over her.

In the end, such was the desperation of Thranduil's folk that they won through, caught though they were between two deadly foes, the darkness before and the red light behind.

Turning at the end of the passage, blood flowing freely down his arm from the wound which had been cleaved even deeper, Elrond saw with horror the glint of hair, the shine of steel which could only be Thranduil's.

With a howl, he flung himself back into the tunnel, reaching the king just as the joist above him collapsed, riven with flame.

Thranduil jumped forwards, but such was the force of the beam that it caught him in the side of the head, knocking him out.

All thoughts of his own safety, of the Ring he bore round his neck forgotten in that instant of sheer desperation, Elrond grabbed a double handful of golden hair and pulled.  Slightly reassured by the groan of pain, he slung the prone form over his shoulder and stumbled for the light.

It only took a moment for Thranduil to regain consciousness, and to begin cursing his headache.

"Be calm, my friend.  At least your injuries are slight."  

He glanced down at the charred fabric of his breeches and grumbled, "That remains to be seen.  But … I must go back."

"There is no going back.  The passage is barred.  You did your best.  Look."  Elrond gestured with the arm not cradled against his chest.  "Many of your people are safe.  You could have done no better."

He fought down the queasiness rising within him, but he could not restrain the shivers which convulsed him, and Thranduil's sharp eyes did not miss it.

"Aelingalen."  He hailed a passing elf.  "Give me your cloak."

"But, my liege…"

"What is this?  Give me your cloak, I say.  Will you disobey me?  Can you not see that Lord Elrond has more need of it than you?"

With an acutely embarrassed expression, the elf shrugged off his cloak and handed it to his king, who slipped it round the shoulders of the huddled peredhel.

"Thank you.  We must move soon.  We are too exposed here."

"In a moment," Thranduil reassured him.  "Earlier, what did you want to say?"

"About what?"

"About your arm?"

"Ah, yes."  Elrond looked discomforted.  "It matters not."

"It does.  Tell me."  The tone of command was unmistakable.

"I believe … I believe that I am fading."

TBC

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~


	7. Ringbearer

**Desolation**

Chapter Seven

Thanks to **Nemis** for betaing this *gives chocolate*

This chapter is rated **R** for violence.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The march to Laketown through the perpetual night was long and arduous. The children wailed and cried out, their wounds but little tended. In truth, they had almost no supplies with them, for such had been the speed and ferocity of the unexpected attack. Elf-maidens walked along with tears coursing down their faces, cutting deep channels in the soot and filth that obscured their features, and yet in their hands swords were brighter than grief. Husbands carried their wives, wives their husbands. There was a sense of barely controlled disarray to the column, which could hardly be said to constitute a fighting force, and yet there was something deeper too, an old anger that seethed and roiled in the weary faces and tensed bodies under charred clothing. The might of the Firstborn had awoken in this exhausted and smoke-sick band.

They had had but a scant handful of hours huddled under the scorched and crackling eaves of Mirkwood before fear had pressed them onwards, half looking backwards in expectance that a host of Orcs would any minute nip at their heels, half looking forwards in dread of what lay before them. The pitiful group seemed to stagger through the open, rolling plains and low hills, lurching from one clump of sheltering trees and scrubby bushes to the next. They were crammed close together, bruised shoulder touching bruised shoulder, shying away from the darkness beyond, clumping hurriedly when red-eyed wolves, carrying with them the stench of death, harried the stragglers. 

The leaders of the band were no less begrimed, battered and wearied than the rest as they struggled onwards through the once-fertile lands. Indeed, their hearts were heavier still, although they stood tall and proud, and their faces showed nothing but steadfast resolution.

Elrond brushed a strand of wind-whipped black hair out of his eyes and glanced at the starless sky glowering above them. It was a long time before he could tear his eyes way and longer yet before he spoke. When he did so it was in an undertone, barely more than a whisper, and his voice was husky and raw with pain. "So we are truly forsaken. Ai... Elbereth!" He looked back at the sky, his jaw set hard.

Thranduil followed his gaze to the featureless blackness and for a moment his face was so grim that it seemed he would agree with the other elf-lord.

"The stars shine yet," he said finally, "although their light does not reach our eyes."

"Maybe." Elrond inclined his head in recognition of the words' worth. They walked onwards for a mile or more in silence before he spoke again. "My... When I was held in Himring, Maglor told us of the darkening of Valinor. How very distant that darkness seemed with the roaring fire before us and our foster-father..." He trailed off; it would hardly be diplomatic to mention that with the kinslayer's arms around them, cradling their tiny bodies close, all evil had seemed so very far away. While Elrond had made his own peace with the kinslayings long ago, the child of both worlds, Thranduil had made his bitter hostility all too well known. "...That other darkness seemed scarcely real, and yet now I can believe we are tasting some fraction of it."

Thranduil smiled enigmatically. "My father was out of his senses with fear when the moon first rose, or so he told me, for its brightness burnt his night-accustomed eyes. More than once he cheered me from a fit of the sullens with those tales... How different perceptions can be..."

Looking over, Elrond could see that the Sindar Elf's eyes were shadowed by grief, and it was not hard to guess on what he thought. It had been hard to lose their elders, but it was never so cruel a blow as the loss of their children. Nevermore in this lifetime would they pass those tales on.

Elrond sighed, and trudged onwards through the tall grass which swayed and swirled in the rising wind.

~*~

The lanterns were guttering frantically when they sighted the shores of the Long Lake, but there was no need for such pitiful flames to gaze upon the settlement of Men. A pillar of black smoke arose in the Southeast where the town should have been, silhouetted darkly even against the dread sky. A foul tang hung in the air and flickers of dull crimson seemed to creep along the ground. 

Slowly they moved forward now, and not a soul among them did not hold some weapon at the ready, be they tried warrior or pastry-chef. The stench became heavier, more terrible, clogging their lungs, and amid the acrid reek it was all too easy to discern the nauseating smell of burning flesh.

As they came down onto the road, they saw the desolation, but they had neither time nor attention to spare for the burning wreck that had once been Laketown, for mutilated corpses lined the greenway, nailed to trees, spread-eagled on the ground or impaled on their own crude weapons. Even the most cursory check revealed that none could possibly be alive.

A child, of no more than seven summers, who had been proudly strutting alongside his king and the peredhel lord, seemingly blithely unaware of his mother's entreaties to return to her side, waving a kitchen knife menacingly, took one look at the carcass of a young maiden, slit from neck to navel by a wicked notched blade which still lay beside her, fouled in the mass of her spilled viscera, and burst into wrenching sobs, his face buried in the earth. His mother, struggling to keep his older sister from running away, was helpless. Elrond hunkered down beside the boy, wrapping the small, shuddering body in his arms. Rubbing soothing circles on the boy's back, he murmured to him just as he had when calming his own children from their nightmares. Gradually, the sobs subsided, although the boy still clung to the front of his tunic with remarkable tenacity.

"Who are you?" he asked bluntly.

"I am Elrond, a friend of your king."

"I am Galien. Are you going to kill the bad Orcs?"

Elrond looked down at the head of downy hair, the fearful eyes, and felt a rueful smile twist his mouth.

"Aye. I shall try my very best."

Galien nodded, apparently satisfied, and stretched out his arms. "Carry me," he commanded imperiously.

Receiving an approving nod from the elfling's mother, Elrond lifted the boy into his arms, trying to ignore the twinge of pain as the action pulled at his wound. While he succeeded somewhat in that, Thranduil's smirk was far more difficult to ignore.

For a moment they stood that way, their backs to the carnage, and the next they turned, all mirth forgotten or put aside.

It took a several hours to pick their way past the scattered bodies to the shoreline, but in this endless dusk which was neither night or day, time seemed suspended, like a crumb caught in thick honey.

Where once the town had risen from the waters of the lake, made proud and strong by the labours of the Men of Dale, only the foundations remained, blackened and charred. Lumps of carbonised wood floated in the bloodied waters, bobbing and colliding with corpses that were already bloated and fish-gnawed. A carrion bird perched on a man's head, cawing his challenge to the night.

"How?" someone asked far back in the crowd, and other voices took up the query.

Gently passing Galien to the wood-king, Elrond knelt and dipped one hand in the lapping waters. It came away coated with a viscous black substance. He sniffed at it warily, and his nose wrinkled in distaste. "Rock-oil! They must have drenched the town with such substances as sometimes seep from the ground." He resisted the urge to curse inventively, and stood quickly, surveying the still burning structure. "Get back! It may not be safe to remain so close."

As the crowd shuffled backward with considerable speed, he rose slowly to his feet and wiped his hand on a stray scrap of cloth lying on the shoreline. He had no desire to know whence it had originated. Flinging it into the waters, he made a cursory attempt to brush the sodden ash from his breeches, but it was to no avail.

"Orc-work from end to end," Thranduil spat, his fists clenched. The folk of Laketown had been allies of the woodland realm, despite the disturbance seventy years before over the dragon's hoard, and none would forget their demise.

"Sauron moves against us now," Elrond said quietly, so that the words would carry only to the ears of the Sindar king. "He has crushed the resistance to the south, and now moves north to subjugate all Middle-earth."

Neither needed to speak aloud. They both knew what that meant.

~*~

The camp barely qualified to be named thus, but it was all they had, driven as they were to the brink of exhaustion. All was quiet as the Elves gathered branches and began to weave them together into crude shelters, but then, as they worked, hands flying, huddled against the dark, one voice arose in song, and another joined it, and then another. The dirge rose and fell in the sweeping air like the swell of the ocean tides, scores of voices singing as one, in praise and lamentation to all the Valar in distant Taniquetil. As the last fragile frames were put in place and the cooking fires were lit, the song wound to its mournful close, the name of Nienna lingering in the air.

It did indeed seem that she wept for them; a light drizzle had begun to fall, sizzling and hissing into the fires, gradually turning into thick, cloying snow that gathered in pockets in the creases of their garments and in the shelter behind their makeshift tents.

Elrond moved from group to group attending the wounded, his borrowed cloak discarded, his tunic unbuttoned and his shirtsleeves rolled up. The cold was deeper than the airs which shuffled and whispered for mile upon mile above them, deep enough to discomfort the hardiest of the Firstborn, but he scarcely noticed, so great was his concentration on his patients.

He was suturing a deep thigh wound, squinting by the fitful light of a lantern, when he felt a light touch on his shoulder. Placing the last stitch, he bound the wound tightly and rose.

"We are lucky that there are so few serious injuries."

"My kinsfolk are hardier and more skilful than many care to admit." There was more than a hint of the old arrogance in the wood-king's eyes.

"I know," Elrond said softly. "I saw it in my mother."

Thranduil dropped his gaze first. "However, you are in dire danger of burdening us with another casualty."

"There is no such risk."

"You are trembling, peredhel."

Elrond lifted one hand to deny it, but he saw that his fingers were shaking, and let it fall.

"Come on." Thranduil slung one arm around his shoulders, the other proffering the discarded cloak, supporting him as he stumbled away, his dragging feet catching on stones and knotted hillocks of dried grass. Snow drifted down upon them, settling in the half-elven lord's dark hair like the unseen stars of night above them.

The bustle of the camp was almost incongruous amid the endless, hostile night and in wordless concord they left it behind them. Huddled deep in their cloaks they settled themselves down on a knoll of broken and fragmented granite, dappled with lichen the hue of the finest amber, which had thrust itself up through the soft grasslands. For a long time they sat in silence, listening to the sibilant susurration of the wind rushing over the empty land, and the muted hum of the camp.

It was Elrond who spoke first. "What should we do with the women and children?"

The crisp, decisive tone of his words amid all the half-sounds of the land startled Thranduil into an ungainly twitch. Hurriedly, he attempted to cover his movement, smoothing at his simple raiment as it had once been his habit during complicated diplomatic sessions to smooth at fantastical silks and velvets in procrastination.

Watching, a small smile tugged at the corners of Elrond's mouth. Only too often had he been infuriated by that very gesture in the midst of some political wrangle.

"We cannot take them into battle," Thranduil said solemnly.

"Of course." Elrond nodded, but the shadow of doubt in his eyes deepened perceptibly. "And yet can it be right to leave them?"

"What mean you?"

"Where might they hide that might not fall? And if it fell, they would only have themselves as protection. Their fate then would be no better, and mayhap worse, than if we kept them close. Nowhere now is safe from the all-encompassing arm of the Enemy. Nowhere is now secure for them. Nowhere may they have hope of remaining undetected by that fell force. Your women and children have some measure of ability in the arts of war, and we might more readily protect them on the fringes of battle than a hundred leagues distant from it."

Thranduil jumped to his feet, whirling to face the peredhel, his pale eyes dark with anger, his handsome face contorted into ugly lines. "It is madness you propose, and more, it is massacre, to lead babes and maidens, unarmed and unprepared, into the thick of the most terrible and futile battle you or I have ever known, for all our years of experience?"

Elrond stood slowly, utilising every last ounce of his will to hold his vast impatience in check, deliberately keeping his voice and his every movement calm and smooth. "Look about you, mellon-iaur. The world has lost its sense. Indeed it is madness I propose." Fleetingly he wondered how many of the maidens he would lead to war would suffer Celebrían's fate; he put that thought aside. "But in a maddened world the course of madness may yet run true. Your people know this already, for they live it, as do we. These are no frail, defenceless folk you lead in these dying days. They know their deaths are near, and although their weapons may not have seen war in many a year, they are willing to raise them high and wield them with valour, warrior and maidens and babes all." He paused and stared bitterly into the distance. "I like it as little as you, my friend, but I can see no other choice than this."

Thranduil let his hand fall forlornly to his side, his fingers clutching claws of despair, tearing soundlessly at the sulphurous air. "Aye, I know. I have seen their deaths in my dreams. But the state of Arda Sahta is fouled and rotten indeed if even the might and majesty of the Firstborn cannot save yearling babes and sucklings from the fray."

"Then let us make fair of foul."

"And our payment for our deeds? Shall that be in Valinor?" the Sindarin Elf asked slowly.

"I know not, for I find that I can scarce think of Valinor as of late," Elrond replied in a low whisper. He knew it was there, did not doubt the benevolence of the Valar, and yet it all seemed so very far away, utterly unreachable.

"How very strange," Thranduil mused softly. "I find my thoughts straying more now to that Blessed Realm than ever before has been their wont."

Elrond opened his mouth as if to speak, to elucidate on his growing despair and dislocation, but a sudden uproar from the camp below shattered the moment. Angry, fearful voices rang loudly through the frigid air; the clash of metal against metal, the sighing hiss of arrows fired at random by unsteady hands, the dull thud of flesh against flesh and the scurrying patter of hurrying feet on hard ground.

Both elf-lords tensed, their hands flying to their sword hilts, unsheathing the blades in a screech of metal. Shoulder to shoulder they strode forward, eyes keenly alert, urgently searching the gloom for the source of the disturbance. The sounds of the struggle only grew ever louder as they made their way down the slope at something only marginally less than a run, the voices more insistent. Shadowy figures emerged from the murk, a knot of dark forms struggling on the ground while bystanders hollered an assortment of contradictory advice. Suddenly one voice rose clear above the babble, hoarse and abrasive with anger and exhaustion. "Let be, let be, you fools! Are you blind as the night to think me an Orc?"

Elrond froze. The voice, for all the ruined quality of its melody, had spoken with an unmistakable Lothlórien accent, and it seemed somehow familiar. Shouldering his way forward, he followed the light of a lantern which was being swung from hand to hand as the folk of Mirkwood crowded closer and closer.

An Elf was lying on the ground, pale, streaming blood from a dozen cuts, his fair hair trampled into the earth. A huddle of maidens and warriors alike were holding this solitary figure to the ground. A gaunt-faced lad of no more than sixty summers, the youngest of Thranduil's guard, who had walked in silence, his clothes rent in mourning for his family, was kneeling on the Elf's back, rhythmically slamming his head into the ground, a soft flow of obscenities escaping from his lips.

Thranduil flicked his fingers almost negligently, and the boy's comrades surged forward, dragging him off the prone form, shaking him none too gently until he relaxed in their grasp like a dying fish.

One swift look from Elrond induced Galien to desist from bouncing up and down on the stranger's legs.

Slowly, painfully, the Elf clambered to his feet, as if the very movement cost him the last dregs of his strength. Although he could barely stand, he shifted ceaselessly from foot to foot. It was not hard to discern why: the soles of his feet were raw and bloodied from running until his shoes had worn away with the speed of his passing. He gasped for breath, pain evident in every note, and gradually lifted his head. Beneath the bruises, the streaks of dried and fresh blood, and the soot stains, Elrond recognised him. Many a time and oft had he seen that face at the borders of the Golden Wood, when he had travelled to and fro with Celebrían by his side and the sunlight bright on his face. Before him, bedraggled and utterly wretched, was Haldir of Lothlórien, one of the three brothers for whom the Wood had been their very existence, their soul and their heart. Elrond found that he did not wish to speculate on the condition of the others. He caught the younger Elf's forearm in a brisk warrior's grip, ignoring the pain that lanced through him as Haldir reciprocated, his fingers digging into the open wound.

The Galadhrim archer smiled weakly, and the expression did not reach his eyes, lingering on his face like the rictus of death. "I must have private speech with you, my lord."

With a quick glance at Thranduil, who looked none too happy at this turn of events, but schooled his features into benevolent neutrality for the benefit of the onlookers, Elrond assented, leading the way back to the hillock, huddling in the pitiful shelter of the tumbled rocks as a merciless wind swept in from Rhovánion, whirling the snow hither and thither in treacherous eddies.

Elrond fumbled inside his heavy cloak and retrieved a flask of fiery spirits, infused with an assortment of herbs, which in the absence of miruvor or any other more complex healing substance had served to ease the pains of his patients. Haldir took it gratefully and swallowed, wincing at the powerful bite. He cradled the flask between his hands, glaring at it gloomily, seeming to grapple for appropriate words.

"Someone should tend your wounds," Elrond said concernedly. The mixture was potent enough to have given the younger Elf an appearance of liveliness, yet he was still and silent, his limbs convulsing with a palsied tremor.

Haldir shook his head. "Nay. This is of such import that it can be no more delayed than it has already been." He unfastened his cloak, and Elrond could see the seeping shoulder wound, crudely bandaged, which the garment had concealed. Even as the peredhel moved to tend the wound, the Sindarin Elf raised one hand to halt him. It held the object he had been searching for, a tiny silken pouch that had hung on a long cord about his neck. It was stained and filthy from the headlong flight from Lothlórien, but the quality of the cloth was fine and the colours had once been exceptionally fine, a blue as bright as sapphires, entwined with the silver of Telperion.

In silence, the marchwarden passed it to his companion. In silence, Elrond held it in his hand, turning over and over. The weight in his palm was terribly, horribly familiar, had haunted his nights and troubled his days. _She_ had nearly died for it, been lost to him for five hundred new springs for its power and its might. The embroidery beneath the sword calluses on his fingertips was intricate: the delicate crest of Finarfin garlanded with mallorn leaves and surrounded by frail runes invoking the protection of Aulë.

His heart hammered in his chest with all the might and fury of the Smith's forge, beating a rapid, arrhythmic tattoo. He lifted startled eyes to the messenger. "What is this?"

"It is what you believe it to be, my lord," Haldir said, his gaze purposefully averted from the bundle.

Elrond returned his attention to the almost audible thrum of power against his palm, the soft murmur of water burbling over rocks, the fall of rain in the evening and mists in the morning. In anguish, nausea rising through him, his thoughts turned to Celebrían. If by some chance whim of fate he was permitted to survive this war and attain the West, what then? How could he tell her of this? How could she possibly forgive his survival? That such a small thing could bear such a burden of lost hope and broken lives... That loss should never end, never stop, and that by all these losses he should lose Celebrían... Vilya flared against the skin, white-hot, burning, searing, bright as the day... He cried out in pain and fear, one hand clawing to tear Vilya from his neck, the other arm extended to throw the tiny pouch from himself, to cast it out into the oblivious darkness...

A hand touched his shoulder lightly, and he span, a knife already in his grasp, pressing into soft flesh. He blinked slowly, his eyes glazed with confusion. Only after some time had passed was he able to focus on Haldir, gazing in indignation at the cold blade digging into his neck.

The knife slipped from Elrond's nerveless fingers and a thin stream of blood trickled down Haldir's neck, soaking into his tunic.

The elf-lord realised that his own skin felt clammily cold and his hands were shaking uncontrollably, but the wound to his arm felt as if it had been filled with molten lead. When he spoke, his voice was harsh even to his own ears, laden with sick dread. "How came this to be? That I...?"

"The Lord and Lady live yet," Haldir said quietly, understanding something of Elrond's fear, the panic seeping into his voice. "The Golden Wood is lost, and many of our people slain, but not all hope has died with them. The Lord and Lady lead the remnants westwards into the plains and the Wilderland, where it may be that they shall fight yet for the freedom they lost. There they shall open a new front to this war, that time may be bought for the true fight, which is now yours alone."

Elrond tried to remind himself that Galadriel was hardly powerless, even without the ring; no disciple of Melian could be that. But the bundle weighing heavily in his palm would not allow his mind surcease. This had been a great power to relinquish willingly, and he was shaken to his core that his indomitable hervess-naneth, who for all her many undeniable virtues could not be doubted to crave power, had given this up to him.

Almost of their own accord his fingers worked the knot loose, drawing the silken cords apart, and Nenya fell out into his palm, the adamant glinting brilliantly in the scant light.

"If she lives yet, why does she send this to me, to danger? It would have been better by far that she kept it by her." He paused, frowning. "Is this indeed the truth, that she lives?"

Haldir raised one eyebrow with a hint of disdain. "It is the truth indeed. My lady knew there would be doubt within you and bade me speak her message: 'A great fate lies before you, son of Eärendil, whether you will it or no. What was once begun under the boughs of Tirion must be wrought to its conclusion by your hands. What was sundered must be healed. And oath's undoing must be its final triumph. You take this ring to danger, and mayhap it shall bring you and I and all the world to ruin, yet if your path holds true, it shall be safer in your hands than in the depths of the sea or the roots of the mountains. And you shall know _it_ when you see it.' Thus spoke my lady, and bid me bring this thing to you."

Elrond twisted the Ring in his had, seeming to see a hundred thousand faces mirrored in its depths. The words had little meaning for him as of the moment, and yet he could feel their portentous weight, as if an iron bar had been set across his shoulders. The path was straight before him, although he could not see its ending, and indeed could scarce perceive his next step. Onwards he would go, to doom and to destiny.

Slipping the chain from his neck, he threaded Nenya onto it beside Vilya. When he replaced the metal cord, it seemed heavier than ever, bearing far more than the burden of two such simple bands.

"Go now and rest. There is some little food, and Thranduil's folk may be able to tend your injuries." He bowed to the Silvan Elf. As the other limped away, he sank down upon a rock with a pained groan catching in his throat. His arm ached bitterly, and the chill damp seeping through the mossy stone only served to exacerbate the dull ache, but it was the lump of nauseous dread, black and immovable as night or death, which rose in his throat, that preoccupied his thoughts and wrung the noise from him. Although sounds of approaching sleep issued forth from the impromptu camp, he had never found rest further from his mind. His thoughts tangled around and around one another like a knotted skein of wool beneath a kitten's paws. Again and again, they returned to Galadriel's words, and again and again he could make neither head nor tail of them. What _was_ this fate of which she spoke? 

__

And you shall know it _when you see it._

The phrase nagged at him. Although he knew not why, he felt certain that it had not been the ring of which she spoke there, but he could find no adequate explanation. Sighing, he lay back against the rock, pulling his cloak tightly around himself, and watched the clouds roiling above, like a stew-pot on the brink of boiling over. Flashes of lightning lit their undersides, and far away to the south fires burnt crimson against the horizon, lighting up the unnatural night. The world was on fire, cast into an inferno from which none could escape, and he was in the midst of it all.

He could almost fancy that there were stars above him, but they were only flecks of light, formed of pain before his eyes. Hope was so very far away, further than the silver sparks that danced before his sight. To she whom he loved more than life itself he would bring blackest despair, if life were, beyond all chance or luck, granted to him. Her parents gone to some unknown fate … her home … her children…

Grief mingled, twined together, until he could no longer tell which was for her, and which for the world and himself, for her grief would always be his, for as long as the world endured.

Lothlórien was burning to the south, and the rings stung against his skin like a venomous bite. The shadow seemed to fall around him like a heavy curtain, but when he uplifted his eyes to the heavens, they were undimmed, despite their tears.

With the last of his strength he reached out, knowing not for what he reached, yet always knowing. He called out to her, in his sorrow and in his regret, his soul yearning for her.

And then she was there, as surely as if she had stood beside him, the deft touch of her mind soothing his thoughts, grieving with him, swelling his dwindled resilience with her own.

He knew not how long he sat there amid the upturned rocks in the desolate wilderness, renewing that which had been lost. His cares he could not forget, but he chose her, chose to believe her when she believed him; chose the light as he always had, but with newer vigour.

In the end, it was such a simple thing, and as he dozed within the gentle compass of her mind, he thought he saw a glimmer of the dawn in the night.

TBC

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hervess-naneth – mother-in-law.

Feel like reviewing? *grins hopefully*


	8. Alliances Forged

**Desolation**

****

Chapter Eight

Thanks to **Lalaith** and **Isis** for betaing this.

It's been a long, long road, but finally the end is drawing near. Poor Elrond. ;)

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The neat bundle of arrow shafts, slender and graceful, lay by Thranduil's side, within easy reach, already tipped with anything from finely forged Noldorin steel points to chips of flint and bone. There was no time now for aesthetic considerations, for pride in skillfully beautiful workmanship of the highest quality. Anything which came to hand had to be used, every skill garnered in the thousand of years of Elven history since the first awakening by the waters of Cuiviénen had to be utilised, no matter how crude or simple.

The wood-king reached for another shaft with his left hand, his right already busy finding a length of twine in the box which lay on his lap, his fingers slightly greasy from the fragrant oils he had used to soften the bindings, to make them easier to manipulate. Moving deftly, he plucked feathers from the basket on the ground by his side, and began to bind the fletching to the shaft, to prepare the arrow for its deadly task, for the mortal fate which hung before them now as the pall of smoke on the southern horizon, thick and stinking black. Arrow after arrow dropped to the ground, completed, as he settled into the familiar rhythm of his task, his fingers flying, his mind free to wander.

He was glad of it, for he was tired to the bone as he had never been before, not even on the plain of the Dagor Dagorlad, nor after the death of his father. An insistent ache throbbed behind his eyes, burning them deep into their sockets, demanding sleep, solace, and above all a time for grief. At last, after all these years of his life, he finally supposed that for any the death of a child was a grievous harm, be they Dwarf or mortal Man, and he began to understand the ancient melancholy he had seen in his rival's eyes as the line of the Kings of Arnor, fosterlings of Rivendell, passed into myth and legend. But for an Elf, for whom death did not come with the natural span of the years, and who could neither accept nor forget its burdens, it was a wound heart-deep in the breast which would not cease to bleed. Legolas was ever in his thoughts, every unmarked hour, every formless, shifting day that passed in this eternal twilight, unlit by sun or moon, or any star of Elbereth's making. It robbed him of what little sleep he managed to snatch, and leeched into his waking dreams until they brought him neither comfort nor rest.

He realised that his hands were trembling, jerking the thin length of tendon loose time and again. Cursing softly, he set it aside, steadying his hands on his knees for a moment before continuing. Seeking some measure of respite from the memories which assailed him, he allowed his gaze to wander without volition across the encampment spread out before him, all that was left of the proud kingdom which he and Oropher before had built up out of the wild and tangled forests east of the Misty Mountains. Smiling painfully, he saw the maids and elflings at training beneath the watchful gaze of Haldir of Lothlórien, on a patch of open ground scuffed bare almost to the rock by their activities. By the fire, banked high within its protective circle of stones, a solitary Silvan warrior, older than Ithil, kept his bow cautiously at hand while he pared wild carrots into the stew pot for the evening meal.

Thranduil's gaze wandered still, and his smile faded from his face as it came to rest on his opponent of old. He was gaunt now, but a shadow of his former robust grace, his clothes hanging limply from his skeletal form. His black hair tied back in a simple queue, he moved among the scattered people, dispensing his healing skills. Screams punctuated the muffling silence as he set an arm broken in a scouting mission that morn. The herbs which might numb such pain were long since gone, and there was no recourse but to act fast and to endure. It was not hard to see the skill with which the elf-lord acted, his long fingers finding the break, bracing his shoulders to pull the fragmented ends of the long bone apart so that they might slip back into their allotted place, nor the concentration on his face as he dulled the edge of the patient's pain with the waning strength of his mind, unaided by the ring which had so long been its support in such things. But even from this distance, it took no effort to see the lines of pain and sorrow deep graven on his countenance, the shadowed grey pallor of his skin, the sharp points of his shoulder bones protruding through the fabric of his cloak. Already, he seemed but a pallid shade in the light of the fires, as if, if one cared to look hard enough, one might see entirely through him, as one might see through a window on a dark night, realising that the images reflected therein are but mirages of the senses.

Again, Thranduil remembered that they had both lost sons, and that some portion of grief and sorrow was more than owed to them for that. But there was more – Vilya's power bound the peredhel to the very airs of these lands, although he wore it not, and deep was his love for Endor, which his parents had sailed into the West to save, bearing with them the Silmaril, the holy jewel wrought by the fell hands of Fëanor. For this love, deeper than the Sundering Seas, deeper than the sunken roots of the mountains, he was failing in his strength, sapped to the core. For his dedication, his quiet, unspoken passion for the freedom of the Free Folk, he was fading fast, his fëa already straining at the bonds which bound it to his dying hróa. The Sindarin Elf knew the echo of this within himself, although it went not so deep, nor so far, and he grieved for it with what little of his spirit he could spare.

__

The time of the Elves is truly over, and there is naught we can do to stop the inexorable course of fate.

Unnoticed, Elrond had come closer, a salve pot in one hand, a bundle of bloodied bandages, torn in strips from blankets and cloaks, wedged in the crook of his arm. He spoke not a word, for his mind dwelt in Imladris, in the spring of the years of the Third Age, when his twin sons, so alike in voice and appearance that none but their parents could tell them apart, were but toddling about the fine-wrought haven. Just as Thranduil, he mourned the loss of his children with keen-edged grief which could not be dulled by time. Silent still, he took a seat on the crude bench beside Thranduil, and, without ceremony, daubed the thick, noisome salve on the wood-king's cheek. The king flinched back as his skin seemed to catch on fire as the repellant substance came into contact with the long, shallow abrasion where he had stripped his skin away against the bark of a stump in his haste to fling himself to the ground to avoid a misdirected arrow. But he did not protest, for the exhaustion came upon him again as he sat there, and he could not formulate even a simple curse. And after score of moments spent gritting his teeth in pain, a hollow numbness gradually spread through the wound, bringing with it blessed relief from the ache which had afflicted him, and a sense of healed wellbeing.

"Thank you," he said at last, releasing his grip on the bundle of sinew which he had held clenched in his fist.

Elrond inclined his head in acceptance and smiled softly. "The Captain of your Guard demanded that I salve your wounds before you took everyone's heads off in your pained rage."

Thranduil turned to grin at him, but his amusement died at its birthing. A few scattered rays of starlight had broken through the clouds, and as the dim light fell on the peredhel's face, its illumination was a curse indeed. The veins in his face shone blue through the translucent skin, as clear and bright as a spider's web, pricked with points of dew, beneath the morning sun. His lips were as pale as the whites of his eyes, the grey darkened to the hue of the storm. Thranduil looked down hurriedly, and then almost wished he had not, for he saw the elf-lord's sword arm, and it was terrible indeed to behold. Crimson lines of blood poisoning spiraled from wrist to elbow, where they disappeared into the voluminous folds of his sleeve, which hung from his arm in hanks of fabric, and they were as deep in hue as if fresh blood had been spilt there. Reeling with horror, Thranduil thought of the rumours he had heard whispered among his people these last days when the fires burnt low and the chill settled even in their bones. Among those who had been born of the Avari in the starlit woods, before the first sunrise, who had but little love for the deeds of the other Elven kindreds. The whispers of the accursed jewel, of the doom of Thingol's line, that they were bound forever to an unnatural fate, to the time and tide of unnatural death. A word might silence the rumours, but it could do not for the lurking possibility that it might be all too true.

Elrond caught his eye, and the sorrow in his own intent gaze deepened. "Worry not, mellon-iaur. I live yet, and shall live, until my task and will are laid to rest, for ill or well."

"How long?"

"A handful of weeks; mayhap as much as a month."

"That is short time indeed for the Eldar."

"But long enough for our task," a new voice joined in, speaking Sindarin with a hoarse, guttural accent, heavily accented, almost as an Orc might speak it.

Metal shrieked as Elrond tugged his sword from its sheath, the oiled blade reflecting the torchlight, gleaming a baleful scarlet. Even as he did so, he whirled, his feet steady on the uneven ground, ignoring the pain which lanced through his right side, the dragging weakness of his sword arm. There was no time now for thought; he pressed forward, using the speed and surprise of his actions to press his advantage over his startled foe. The Man, his face shadowed by his deep hood, stumbled and fell, even though his demeanor suggested he was little accustomed to such swift defeats. He lifted one hand to ward off the crushing blow aimed at his head, and instead found steel pressed to his throat, drawing blood in a thin ribbon from his punctured skin.

Without lowering his guard, Elrond risked a glance at Thranduil, to find him standing beside him with an arrow aimed solidly between the Man's angled, dark eyes.

"Hold. Peace! Peace! If this is how you treat your friends, it is no wonder that they are so few." The voice – strange, alien as it was – seemed somehow familiar.

"Show yourself, _friend_." Thranduil spat the last word, hostility and disbelief filling his voice.

"I cannot show myself when I dare not move my hands for fear of being skewered like a roast hog."

"We will not injure you, but neither shall we remove our weapons." Elrond searched the darkness for signs of others, but could find none beyond the soft murmur of the camp to their left.

In the flickering light, the two Elves could just see the corners of the Man's mouth twist in a wry expression of amused defeat. Moving cautiously, he raised his hands to his temples, and slipped back his hood.

It was Ulrang, the Easterling, unlooked for and unexpected, for all the oaths he had sworn and the promises he had given. His face was as shrewd as ever, his dark eyes calculating, yet surprisingly kind even as he appraised those who held him prisoner. His knife was at his belt, still sheathed, as was a curved sword in a battered leather scabbard that had seen enough of war and suffering. Purpling bruises dappled his face, crowding close to his hairline, and as he moved, he held one elbow close by his side as if he was afraid his arm would break loose.

Elrond raised an inquiring eyebrow, relaxing only slightly, while Thranduil bristled beside him.

Ulrang scowled, his face a grim mask. "It is only too easy to forgot that a soft life lived without honour is no life at all," he said bitterly, "as I am sure you know, elf-man. Not all among my kin were content to go into the dark with honour, to brave the halls of our fathers with pride. Not all of them would have followed me to this end, to change a short life of happiness and the death of our people for a glimpse of hope and honour."

"And what of them now? Do they sit high in your counsels now one month is changed for the next?"

Ulrang turned his head and spat at the ground. "They moulder, elf-man. I would leave no enemies behind me for the lord of lies."

Elrond nodded slowly, and withdrew his sword, slipping it back into its scabbard. "Let him go."

"What?" Thranduil went an ominous shade of puce which Elrond remembered all too well. It had usually presaged a storm of temper which could rip mountains from the earth and make forests flee.

"He is an ally to us, a good and honourable Man, strange though that may seem to those of us who remember the treacheries of his ancestors."

Ulrang gritted his teeth, but wisely refrained from any speech that might culminate with him finding two arrows protruding from his lower abdomen.

Briefly, the elf-lord described his previous meeting with the Easterling, and the agreement to which they had come. Eventually, grudgingly, Thranduil lowered his aim, and the Man clambered to his feet, dusting fragments of dried grass from his travel-stained oilskin breeches.

His head high, he sketched his erstwhile captors a sardonic bow.

"I see you are held in great esteem, more than the portion accorded to some traveller of little name, Master Elurin."

Thranduil shot him a startled look. "You used your uncle's name?"

"It seemed fitting." He shrugged. "But the time for such pretences are past. Lord Ulrang, I am Elrond Peredhil, son of Eärendil and Elwing."

The Easterling goggled, and then burst into peel after peel of surprisingly melodic laughter which re-echoed from the hills and startled a new semblance of life into the encampment. He tried to force words out between wheezing breaths, but all Elrond could hear were fragments of his own name. He looked to Thranduil, but the other elf-lord merely grinned at him, some of his grim mood lifted.

Eventually, some part of Ulrang's mirth was satiated, and he became fractionally more coherent. "Legend has you … tall as a house … clothed all in black with … the skulls of your enemies arrayed around your neck and on your brow… You … breathe fire … and eat wicked children…"

Elrond opened his mouth to make a laughing comment about his own sons in their youth, but then the reality of the situation was borne in upon him once more, and grief hit him in a wave. They were gone … dead … he forced himself to remember that they were not merely _gone_, as if they were hiding beyond the next hill, but _dead_, mouldering in the piles of bone and ash strewn before the Black Gate. His children … his own flesh and blood, the babes he had held in his arms with Celebrían beside him, had named before all Imladris… _dead_. And Arwen soon to follow them…

There was a light touch on his mind, as a butterfly alighting on a branch, and the faintest scent of cinnamon and vanilla reached his senses. For a brief moment, he beheld her beloved face, the countenance of the wife he would have gladly died to save. An eye of a bold shade of deep blue beneath a finely arched brow … the flicker of distant sunlight and cool shade on long, silver hair … a graceful hand raised to her mouth…. Through her eyes, he caught a fleeting hint of what she saw about her: marble pillars that seemed to soar as the Mellyrn of Lothlórien, and broad courtyards tiled in marvellous patterns… The halls of her forefathers: the palace of Finarfin, High King of the Noldor. Aman. Tirion.

__

Meleth-nîn, I know. I understand. I grieve. You are not alone in your sorrow, and I shall ever love you, e'en as the stars love the earth they touch with their light, and the earth loves the stars it beholds in glory and grace. For them, you will succeed. For our children. The sorrow in her voice was no less deep than his, and yet it brought him some measure of calm.

__

I love thee, Celebrían-nîn, and I thank thee.

He blinked once, twice, focusing on the bemused faces of the Man and Elf before him. "I hope you perceive the reality somewhat different," he stuttered in response to Ulrang's chortled admission, still acutely aware of the warm caress of Celebrían's thoughts in the back of his mind, the reassuring passion which soothed the cold darkness growing within him.

"Somewhat stranger, if truth be told," Ulrang mused. The next moment, he returned his attention to the business at hand. "I bring four thousand men sworn to arms, loyal and true. I come to die, if you will be brave enough to die with me." He clapped his hand to his chest, open-fisted, in a warrior's salute of trust and respect.

Elrond bowed deeply, repeating the gesture, and, only a fraction of a second behind him, Thranduil followed suit. "I give my blood, I give my loyalty, I give my hope to this, our final battle." At first he knew not whither the words came, but he had a fleeting impression of a tall, dusty room with golden sunlight floating in through mullioned windows and a sea breeze stirring the piles of paper. Balar. And a battle-weary Ereinion Gil-galad holding forth laconically on the customs of Men.

He was relieved when Ulrang grinned in approval.

"Come. We make our plans now, and we march on Mordor within the day."

~*~

Elrond moved the goblet of thin, sour wine provided by the Easterlings, and jabbed a finger at the map, sighing deeply. "Nay. We cannot risk the passage of Cirith Ungol, for a horror lurks there from the dawning of the world. And in truth there is no necessity."

"No necessity?" Thranduil and Ulrang exclaimed in unison, united in horror. "We must have surprise if…"

"It will be surprise enough that we dare come upon him at all, instead of lurking in the hills to be captured like beasts or churlish fools who care nothing for aught else beyond their own skins." Unconsciously, he touched one hand to the heavy burden which hung about his neck, chaffing at his skin, rubbing it raw. "We cannot depend on surprise, for he sees all, nor speed, nor force of arms, for he commands more than we can imagine in the deepest pits of our dreams. The only thing that we can depend on is this: that he craves the power that he has not, and has never had. He craves that which I cannot even name in these times. He will come for me, and that is the end to which all our force must be bent. To meet his force with might of our own, that he does not capture this, and, mayhap, beyond all hope or reckoning of hope, to wrest the Ring, the One Ring, from his finger, and to cast it into the fire."

"It is a foolish plan."

"It is our only plan. We march to the Black Gate and face him." Elrond hesitated, and he slipped the chain from around his neck, the two rings clinking together. Offering up a plea to the Valar in far Aman, he held them out in his extended hand. "I shall bear these until I can bear them no more. If I am struck down, take them, and take them to the fires of Mount Doom. Hide them, bear them, do what you will with them, but do not allow him to have them." 

The certainty of his own death had been growing in his mind these past days, a conviction which not even Celebrían could ameliorate. Vilya and Nenya were to be his sacred trust for as long as he could bear them, even to that final battle: this he knew, beyond all doubt, for it sang in the blood of Melian the Maia which flowed through his veins. But also he knew that when he fell, as he must, he would not allow Sauron the Deceiver to bestow their power upon the broken and crippled tools of his will, to make a mockery of all that had once been good and beautiful in the world.

Thranduil's face set into a stony mask; Ulrang stared.

"Yet more surprises you have for us, elf-man," he said in wonder. "The Elven rings…"

"What know you of them?" Thranduil demanded, suspicion bright in his eyes.

"Barbarian I may be, but not an ignorant barbarian," Ulrang retorted angrily. "It is folly indeed to live in ignorance of the strengths of your enemies."

Elrond raised a hand and quieted them, his noble face devoid of expression, his emotions held on tight rein. "Do this. Do not betray the world."

"Aye, I shall, by Elbereth, and by Manwë Súlimo, by the Lord of Mandos who holds my doom, and by Nienna who weeps."

"By my blood, and my heart, and by my sword."

Elrond nodded in satisfaction and replaced the rings around his neck.

"It seems my host is not alone in arriving this night," Ulrang observed, his eyes fixed on the horizon, keen as a hawk at the hunt.

"Aye," the peredhel lord agreed. He had been tracking the progress of the cloud of dust for the past half hour, and now he was sure it could be naught else but a small army. Its ranks were low to the ground, thick set, heavily armoured, closely packed. And they came from the North, not from the orc-ridden mountains, nor from the gates of Mordor. "Come. Let us see what news they bring in these dark days."

Accompanied by a score of warriors, long-eyed and proficient with the bow, they moved out, covering the ground with long strides. The column was moving at a fast trot now, ungainly but efficient, and the faint slap of weapons against chain mail reached the Elven ears. And a song … low and harsh, old as the hills and somber as the darkness of the mountain roots. A song for war, and a life lived with the passionate brevity of mortal years, beneath the mountains, in the darkness which never changed.

Thranduil's hand tightened around his sword-hilt, but he did not say anything. Their necessity was too dire for old grudges; too dire to remember the murder of the Elven king of old in the cavernous halls of Menegroth and the grudge it had spawned.

They were clear to the eye now, standing shoulder to shoulder, bearded and helmed, their eyes fierce and dark, their bodies as sturdy as the weapons they wielded: stout swords, double-bladed axes, fearsome maces. In their midst they carried a covered bier, ornately decorated with traceries of mithril, banded with gold and precious stones, inlaid with mother of pearl.

Elrond stopped short of them, and bowed deeply, feeling some thread of the life he had known bind about him. 

__

Peacemaker, as well as warrior, my love, she reminded him.

"Mae govannen, King Dáin of the Lonely Mountain."

He found himself presented with an axe at waist-height, the vicious blade held parallel to his body.

"By the arms and the hammer of Mahal, we come to fight by your side, Master Elf, will you or nil you."

TBC

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hróa – body.

Fëa – soul.


	9. Light in the Darkness

** Desolation**

****

Chapter Nine

Thanks to **Lalaith** and **Isis** for betaing this.

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Elrond bowed deeply, avoiding the sharp-edged blade which gleamed balefully in the torchlight, scarlet and amber.

"I will it indeed, Lord Dáin, and I am grateful, and more than grateful." He drew out his sword and held it level at his waist. "I will fight by your side, and by the side of all the people of Erebor, the Lonely Mountain, until the ending of the world, be it your will or no."

The elderly Dwarf harrumphed, but there was no sign of displeasure upon his countenance. "Honeyed words have ever been your wont, Master Elrond, and never have they betrayed us yet. But what of those who march with you? What will they swear?"

Out of the corner of his eye Elrond could see Thranduil glowering, his hand his hand on the hilt of his sword. He stiffened infinitesimally, waiting for the storm to break. But it never came; Thranduil stepped to his shoulder, drawing his sword with a hiss of metal, and holding it before him, the reflection of his golden hair bright in the blade.

The wood-king gritted his teeth, and, for all the gravity of the situation, Elrond could not help but smile.

"For all that stands between us, Greenwood the Great will stand with you, now, at the end of all things." He turned his blade and drove the point deep into the earth at his feet, his fingers tapping the pommel-stone restlessly.

Dáin's eyes, beneath his wrinkled brow, were bright with suspicion, dark as the chasms of Khazad-dûm.

"I remember the bars you set about me, wood-king," he growled, and his gnarled fingers tightened about the axe haft that he still held parallel with the ground.

Elrond pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling the familiar ominous headache starting behind his eyes. Now was not the time for the argument he had heard often enough for the past two Ages. He caught Ulrang's eye, and found the Easterling stern and grave, his angled eyes troubled. The Man moved closer, his footsteps almost Elven-quiet with the practised stealth of the warrior.

"We cannot afford this," he murmured, echoing the Elf's own thoughts. "If we are to be divided, then even what little purpose we have shall fail. Command him!"

"I have no power to command either. They are not my vassals to do as I bid," Elrond whispered back, passing one hand across his eyes as if to blot out the confrontation before him, the sturdy figure of the Dwarf scowling up at the tall, slender Sindarin Elf, whose face was a mask of barely concealed fury, his shoulders taught with anger.

Thranduil seemed about to speak, his lips white with the force of his emotions, when the Dwarven king dropped the blade of his axe to the scrubby grass, mirroring the Elf's posture. "Glad though I would be to hew your neck for the insult you did to us then, I would rather yet hew the necks of Orcs, for the memory of Khazad-dûm is bitter indeed to Mahal's folk."

He stared up at the wood-king with baleful dark eyes, his shoulders hunched, his beard bristling in challenge. "Well?"

All was still; all was silent, apart from the sound of Thranduil's ragged breathing, and the pulse of the vein in his neck. He raised one hand to his brow, as if to fend off a mortal blow, and his knuckles whitened against the hilt of his sword. At last, he gave a short bark of hollow laughter, and turned his eyes away to look upon the scuffed ground. "Aye, let it be this way. We have little enough time for the quarrels of the past, for if we dwell on them, we spend our last chance that they shall be remembered beyond these dying days."

The faintest of smiles crinkled the skin at the corners of Dáin's eyes. "I would like to be able to remember, Master Elf." He turned slowly, ponderously, his armour creaking against the plates of boiled leather beneath it, his shield clanking upon his back, and tilted his square head up to look at the Easterling.

"What folly is this, Master Elrond?"

Ulrang stepped forward, tugging his begrimed cloak aside to expose the hilt of his battered sword. He laid his hand upon it and inclined his head. "I speak for myself, dwarf-king, and none shall speak for me, be he Elf, or mortal Man, or the lord of lies himself. I am Ulrang of those you call the Easterlings, and I come now to the world's ending. Will you take my blood, and my sword, and my promise, or I must I prove it upon my body?" He touched his free hand to the yellowing bruises at his temples.

"Why should we trust those who learn from Sauron alone, who would have ensnared me with the treasure of my forefathers, if I had but helped him?"

Ulrang threw back his head and laughed, his thick black hair whipped hither and thither by the gathering wind, and it was not a kindly noise, but the mirth of one who has seen too much, and who knows too much to ever be at peace, the laughter of an outcast, a stranger in a strange land. "From Sauron alone, you say?" He shook his head, and his eyes glinted with dark humour. "Aye, long we followed him, dwarf-king, for those who have nothing must take what they can when they can, and what have we ever had from the folk of the West but lies and scorn and plunder? Greatness he promised us, and glory and wealth that even your people cannot imagine, and gladly we would have it from those who would not give us the honour we merited. But he was not our sole teacher, or ever could be. I know a little of your lore; did Tharkun come alone? Among his companions were there not two close in mood and in face to one another, who returned not from their voyagings in the East to your lands?"

"The Blue Wizards," Elrond breathed softly, feeling the burn of the Rings sharp against the tender skin of his chest, and the Eye, searching, ever searching for them, as if its malice too was bent upon the missing Istari.

"Blue Wizards?" Ulrang laughed, and this time there was genuine amusement in his voice. "Aye, I suppose they wear enough blue to warrant that name. They came to me six years past, and spoke with me. What they said then disturbed my heart, for ever had I thought that the Lord of Mordor's victory would be ours too. But they said that it was not so; that in the end, all Men would fall before him, for he desires dominion as much as he desires destruction, and the ways of Men are alien to him.

"Long I had known the wizards, for they had dandled me at my mother's hearth when my father was away at war, and taught me of lore and of knowledge. 'Twas from them I learnt to stilt my words in your tongue." He gestured ruefully at his throat. "Once, Sauron was my master, but never was he my keeper, dwarf-king."

Dáin stared hard at him, and behind him his war host grumbled and shuffled uneasily, stamping their heavy boots on the hard ground. He leaned heavily on the shaft of his axe, driving the keen blade deeper into the earth. Long it was before he responded, his tones gruff and grudging. "Aye, it will have to do, I suppose. If Master Elrond says it must be so, then it must be so."

"And I do," the Peredhel said gently, resheathing his own sword. "I trust Ulrang's men, as I trust you all, for we cannot fail, neither in our vigilance, nor in the strength of our will in this matter, and there are none now beside us who may stand before the Dark Lord in the strength of his fastness, and defy him."

"Very well." Dáin levered his axe from the ground, and swung it over his shoulder. "Then let it be done, for I shall be damned before I see the will of Sauron rule me."

Elrond smiled at the Dwarf's blunt words. "Be not so hasty to swear oaths, for you may yet find yourself bound to them."

Dáin grunted, and lifted his hand in signal. In response, eight Dwarves moved forward at a stately march. They were clad in leaf mail wrought of mithril; about their waists were belts inlaid with many gems, sombre and beautiful. Their gauntlets were laced with gold, their hair and beards combed and braided, and the helms upon their heads shone with a burnished light. Upon their shoulders, they bore the litter Elrond had noticed before. Now, he realised that it was a funeral bier of wondrous make, its sides decorated with obsidian plates showing the works of Mahal. It was covered in cloth of gold that shimmered even in this dim light, as fine as tissue, and as strong as woollen cloth, for veins of mithril ran through it, silver-white and pure. As one, the eight bearers lowered the litter to the ground, their plain faces expressionless beneath their beards and copious eyebrows. Each of them carried a sword in addition to a pair of war-axes, and these they drew, raising them in silent salute, first to the dead, and then to the living.

A feeling of sick dread settled in the pit of Elrond's stomach, for he knew what was to come, and wished to prevent it, but it would not be politic, and there was nothing he could do.

Reverently, Dáin stepped to the bier, and folded the golden cloth back until it lay across his aged hand like a strip of molten metal. Elrond forced himself to keep his eyes on the sight that was revealed, although the very idea nauseated him, and he wished to recoil.

Very carefully, the King of Erebor took the wizened hand in his, and turned so he could see both his own people, and their allies.

"No long sleep beneath the stone of the mountains for Durin's folk," he said slowly. "No dark fastness beneath the rock that we were hewn from for Mahal's children until the world is remade. Durin is dead, and Balin of Moria is dead, and the days of the heroes are gone, and we have naught but the steadfastness of our forefathers, and the stubbornness of our pride to guide us." His hand trembled, and his face grew pale and grey. "I do this not lightly, for my heart is a weight of stone within me to disturb the rest of one I admire most." He straightened, and seemed to grow strong and stern, as if the years had fallen away. "But we go to die, and we shall die with the greatest of the treasures which remain to us."

Elrond swallowed, conquering some part of his revulsion, and looked at the body lying upon the bier, a great sword clutched in the shrunken hand beneath Dáin's. The skin – what skin remained – was yellow and brittle as parchment over the fragile bones. The head of Thorin Oakenshield was twisted and pitiful now in death, the chest caved in and the exposed bones, beneath their covering of skin, cracking to dust. But his fingers remained tight about the hilt of the sword: Orcrist, forged in Gondolin of old, and even as Dáin peeled them from it, they seemed to crumble, and there were tears in the elderly Dwarf's eyes, and soaking his thick, grey beard.

"Behold," he whispered, and then raised his voice so all assembled could hear it. "Behold Orcrist, the Goblin-cleaver which Thorin Oakenshield bore upon the field of the Battle of Five Armies! Behold the strength of our arms!"

There was a roar of approval, but Elrond barely heard it, even as it deafened him, for the other treasure held all his thought, and suddenly he could feel the tension in the air, sharp and sour as crab apples. The thin wind rustled his hair, tugging at his braids and his cloak. The faint odour of the grave, musty and rotten mingled with the bitter tang of metal in his nostrils, and he could neither move nor cry out. Instinctively, he reached for Celebrían, but he found in her mind a voiceless, formless dread such as he had never known there. For a heartbeat, he saw through her eyes … an Elf standing over her as she hunched in a chair, his face terribly fair, his hair golden, and a circlet upon his brow. And upon his face… upon his face, such fear that neither Elrond nor Celebrían could bear to look upon it.

He found the name without knowing whither it had come. _Finarfin, High King of the Noldor._

Elrond blinked, and the vision faded, but not his own terror, nor that of his wife, for they knew that they had seen something on the face of the king which had not been seen in two Ages of the Sun.

Slowly, the world as it was reformed before his eyes, but he found no comfort there, either, even as Dáin continued in his gruff tones, much to the acclaim of the Dwarves, tears falling openly from his eyes. For it was still there, upon the breast of Thorin Oakenshield, and Elrond could hear its music in his mind, muted and discordant, but audible nonetheless. He looked around, pain stabbing through his sword arm, and was surprised to see that no others seemed to be thus disconcerted. But his gaze could not leave it for long; it was simply not possible.

The Arkenstone. The Heart of the Mountain, beloved of the Dwarves of Erebor, glittering with light of many colours, even in the darkness, utterly beautiful, utterly deadly. His heart raced, and he could hear the sound of the sea, not as a longing, but as a dread, and a woman's voice, piercingly sweet, even though it was upraised in anger and in fright. The pounding of the waves against the cliffs, and the ring of sword against sword mingled with the furious crying of the gulls. And the bright light arcing downwards towards the razor-sharp rocks tangled at the foot of the fall…

Elrond found himself trembling uncontrollably, his wounded arm hanging limp by his side, his head on fire, and his left hand clenched around the Rings at his breast. Slowly, he released them, but his eyes did not leave the Arkenstone.

"Lord Elrond?" Ulrang was looking up at him with concern. "What is it?"  
  
"Naught. 'Tis naught." He shook his head, and wrenched his eyes away as they made their way back to the camp.

~*~

__

"No!" He was cowering in a closet, hidden behind a musty old cloak which smelt of brine and tarred ropes, but still the hand reached for him, shapely and fair. "No!" 

"Child, it shall go the worse for you if you do not surrender."

But the words were not spoken with the golden, lyrical voice of memory, musical even despite anger, and grief, and the smoke of battle. Now 'twas harsh, and bitter, and filled with callous laughter, and the knife fell from his grip, for he saw that the other's hand, clawing at him, bore the Ring upon its finger, the writing bright and clear with red flame.

He screamed, but he had no voice, and the other chuckled, now hoarse, now liquid-fair like mead in wintertime.

He tried to lift his hand, to grasp the dagger – or was it a sword? – once more, but his arm was withered by his side, red, and shrunken, and useless.

And suddenly Celebrían was beside him, bleeding from a poisoned wound, and beside her Elrohir, and Elladan, and Aragorn, torn asunder by bloody rents. And Arwen, pale and lifeless, with a babe in her arms.

And beyond them, in the fathomless, impossible depths of the cupboard in the house on the cliffs above Sirion, Eärendil and Elwing, Tuor and Idril, bloated by the sea, green-tainted and reeking of foul weeds. And Turgon, swordless, broken and burnt, and Elenwë frozen. And Dior and Nimloth, and their sons perished, and Finrod and Beren with their throats wolf-torn, and Lúthien cold as stone, and all the Houses of the Elves, and of the Elf-friends, dead around him as he sat useless, huddled in the body of the child he had once been. And Elros, cankered by mortal age.

And last, as at the first, Celebrían, bleeding, her blue eyes filling with the pain of betrayal.

And he could do naught.

But even as he despaired, light suddenly wreathed around him as smoke from a candle-flame, brighter than he had thought light could be, and he raised his hand, and he saw that he held a stone which glowed with a light of its own, impossible in this darkness which clung and stank. But true nonetheless. 

His assailant screamed, once more with the golden voice of Makalaure Fëanorion, and the Ring fell from his finger, shattered and useless…

Elrond started awake, kicking out against the blankets which were tangled around him, gasping for the breath pain denied to him. His right arm was leaden by his side, and his sword was clenched again his body. But even as he tried to convince himself that it was but a dream born of the fever that was consuming him, he could not quell the panic, the relentless surge of the blood in his veins. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard Celebrían's sleepy inquiry, but he did not understand it.

Shivering convulsively, he staggered to his feet, tugging his cloak around him with hands that trembled, and fastening his sword about his waist. Ducking out of the tent Ulrang had lent him, he braced himself against the chill shock of the air of this unnatural night.

Turning South, he saw a great wall of cloud welling up on the horizon, thick and black and foul, darker by far than the clouds which already enveloped them, spitting rain which hissed and stung and smelt of rank death.

Elrond tried to gather his thoughts, to find some modicum of the reserve for which he was famed, but it was not there. He could not reach it, could not find it; it was lost to him in this new whirl of emotions.

Limping slightly and cradling his wounded arm to his chest, he made his way across the encampment, skirting the fires which glowed dimly, the huddled forms of the sleeping folk. His mouth tasted of bile, and ash, and he craved the sweet, cold waters of Imladris with a sudden pang.

He came to the tent where the litter of Thorin Oakenshield lay, and ducked under the tent-flap. His feet had guided him here, even while his mind protested.

He stopped, his hands clenched by his sides, and looked upon the Arkenstone once more, and his dream came back to him, stronger even than it had been in sleep, and the music and light called to him, and Celebrían's voice was soft with fear in the back of his mind. Painfully, as if his feet were encased in lead, he made his way forward until he stood over the body of the Dwarf. Shuddering with distaste, he brushed away the grave-dust, his hands fluttering over the protruding ribs as lightly as possible, and took the Arkenstone in his hands, which felt very cold, as if they too were made of stone.

His dread consumed him utterly now, as the music rose in volume, grating through his mind, and images came to him, of things he had never known, and he knew he was being warned – although by whom he knew not. For the power of this thing captured him entirely, and he was in awe of it, even as he knew that it was nothing akin to the Rings, and would not hold him against his will. Rather, its power was in its beauty, and in its majesty. In its sanctity.

He smelt strange flowers, and grass fresher and greener than any he had ever known. The salt-tang of the sea joined seamlessly with the rolling boom of the waves on a distant shore. And music and laughter without fear.

Then, he knew what he had to do, the task which was allotted to him in these days he had never hoped to see, the fate reserved for him from out of the deeps of time, from the Day before ever there were days beneath the Sun and the Moon of this broken world.

The past, the histories and legends which he knew so well, crowded close, filling the tent, and in the opalescent light of the stone, he seemed to see an Elf with bright, arrogant eyes and dark hair and the hands of a craftsman. And a mortal Man, his face graven with lines of pain, standing hand in hand with an elf-maiden robed in white. He knew it was only in his only mind – perhaps a trick of his fading wits, but he also knew it was time, and beyond time, if things were to come full circle and his fate wrought to its fullness, he, the scion of a line of dead kings, whose father bore the Silmaril in the heavens.

He raised his hands over his head, his arms shaking, his heart cold and still with fear. A draught shivered across his skin, and icy fingers paced down his spine. Time seemed to pause, and he could hear his pulse, loud in his ears, faltering, ever slowing, running in rills like bright mountain waters, and calming to the sluggish pace of lowland meanders. He raised it higher yet, and his fingers slipped against the stone, slicked by his own sweat. Only by a fraction of a heartbeat did he manage to catch it, and the murmur of the sea climbed to a dull roaring that contended with his heart. The Rings burnt and seethed against his skin, and he imagined he could feel them roiling like snakes in the back of his mind at this new power which was not of their kind. He hissed as his shoulder protested at the moment, but did not falter for a moment.

The Arkenstone's dim light flickered on his face, and he looked up into it, wonder shining in his grey eyes, that he should see this day. His stomach clenched nervously, and he prepared to make the fatal move…

"Elf! Accursed Elf!" At the infuriated shout, he whirled, his arms still held aloft.

Dáin emerged from where he had been sitting in the shadows, his old face livid with fury. In one hand, he gripped Orcrist; in the other, he held his war-axe. He advanced with surprising speed, cursing vigourously. "Why did I trust an Elf to see the Arkenstone of my fathers? Tell me what you would do with it, traitor!"

Elrond was dimly aware that he ought to feel some degree of alarm, but everything was so distance, imprisoned beyond the crystalline bubble which held him in its thrall.

"But you see," he said peacefully, his eyes like the stars on a cool winter night, a smile curving his fine lips, "'tis not the Arkenstone of your fathers alone."

And with that, he let it fall, tumbling end over end towards the canvas floor. Vaguely, on the edge of perception, he thought that perhaps something which had survived the depredations of Smaug should not be so easily broken, but he had no doubts as to his actions.

The Arkenstone fell, the Heart of the Mountain, beloved of the Dwarves, and hit a protrusion of rock hidden by the tent's floor. There was a great crack, surely louder than the impact warranted, and the air seemed alive, more alive than the Elf and Dwarf standing motionless, facing one another.

Fragments of stone, of fine crystal sprayed the tent, dusting the floor with the semblance of a hundred thousand diamonds, and there was a flash of light such as had not been seen in this Middle-earth for years beyond count.

Elrond wavered and fell to his knees, covering his ears as the music in his mind swelled to a crescendo of joy, and then faded away into a simple melody beyond the reckoning of the Children of Ilúvatar.

It was beautiful, and terrible, and strange, as the first sunrise so very long ago.

Dáin's axe fell from his hand with a clatter.

Elrond shut his eyes against the sudden brilliance, and drew a shuddering breath. Unable to clamber to his feet, he crawled forward on his hands and knees, gently brushing the fragmented stone away as he went until there was a clear circle surrounding the object he had freed. He bowed his head in reverence, and looked upon it, and heard again the voice of his mother, on the strand of Sirion.

The crystal casing which had held it imprisoned so long, forged in the heat of the earth, in the heart of the mountains, was shattered. Dull and discordant it had been before in comparison, now its light was unclouded and its song a song of beauty alone.

He stretched out his hand, and then recoiled, recalling to his mind the agony of the last sons of Fëanor. He turned his own hand over, looking at the unblemished palm, marked only by grime and sword calluses.

__

If I should… If I dared, what then?

But he knew that it was not a question of daring, that he had no choice in this if he was to have hope. And for that hope, which would be his grandson's, he would gladly bear this wound. Long he stared at his hands, and eventually, tentatively, he extended his right hand. His arm was already too weak, and his right hand would thus be a lesser loss than his left.

His fingertips touched it, and it did not burn them.

His fingers curled around it, and it did not burn them.

He held it in his palm, the radiance outlining the long bones in the back of his hand, and it was not burnt.

He clambered to his feet, holding the stone aloft, the brightness almost unbearable in the confined space. He held the Silmaril of Maedhros.

__

Oh dear my love… Celebrían wept, and he wept with her, and neither knew if it was for joy or sorrow.

He did not know what this meant, only that this was what Galadriel had foreseen when she sent Nenya to him in the hands of her marchwarden.

The Silmaril of Fëanor, whose like he had seen before in the hands of his mother, in the house on the cliffs of Sirion, before First Age of the Sun ended. The holy light spilled over him, soothing him, and he smiled, although it was not a smile without its darkness.

That the Silmaril should be found again now, in these days of war, and of woe…

Elrond could only imagine what he portended. 

Someone yelled, hoarse with wonder. He looked away from the stone, blinking at the sudden darkness. Thranduil was standing in the doorway, his mouth open, and behind him stood Ulrang, his shrewd eyes wide and guileless as he gazed and gazed.

"Behold," Elrond murmured. "Behold a wonder which is not of these lands, nor of these days, yet it comes out of the deeps of time to our aid when least looked for."

"What is it?" Ulrang croaked, massaging his head with one hand.

"The Silmaril, the holy jewel," Thranduil answered, the blue of his eyes extinguished, and his face unreadable. "You see now the light of the Two Trees that were, long before even Lord Elrond was born, and are no more." He turned to Elrond, and his eyes were suddenly bleak. "Think you that this is truly the end of things, if the Silmaril is found?"

Elrond traced the facets of the gem with one fingers, his face pensive. "Nay," he said at last. "The world does not yet end, nor has the Silmaril which Maglor cast into the depths been found, and most assuredly Morgoth remains in the Void which is Beyond. Rather, we should say that this thing has been given unto us to use, and that when our task is done, we should return it to the earth from whence it came."

For indeed, a faint flame of hope had been kindled within him by the holy light, and for the first time, he saw an ending to this thing which was not entirely for ill. The world of Men might yet endure, if the Free Folk remained true, one to the other.

"What should we do with it?" Dáin asked in a low, harsh whisper.

"That I know not, for 'tis no weapon. 'Twas not made for battle and suffering, although enough has been wrought in its name. But perhaps there is a way, and what was begun in Elven Tirion beyond the Sundering Seas shall be made whole here, beneath the ruined and darkened skies of Endor." Almost tenderly, he wrapped the Silmaril in a scrap of cloth which lay at hand, and tucked it in his tunic, next to his skin.

The Rings were quiescent as he sat at the crude trestle table with pen and paper before him, and the others gathered around him, holding counsel on what might yet be done in this war in which nothing was certain. And Celebrían was with him, her mind touching his, awed and afraid for him, yet as determined as he.

The threads were drawing together. The story had begun, here at its ending, and this day they would march for the Brown Lands which lay before the Black Gate of Mordor, a host weak in number, but no longer without hope.

TBC

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~


	10. Emyn Muil

****

Desolation

Chapter Ten

Thanks to **Isis** for betaing this for me.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A chill wind blew through the high valley, but the day was bright and fair. Sunlight fell in golden lances from the cloudless autumn sky, and the dying leaves rustled on the trees, vermilion and umber and saffron yellow. Elrond leant his back against the wall of smooth white stone, and smiled up at the serried peaks which marched, rank upon rank, away into the heights of the Misty Mountains. Far below him, he could hear the restless song of the Bruinen, and the din of the House as it prepared for the feast that would be held that night.

"A fair place, indeed, my lord, and quiet," his companion's voice broke his reverie, but his smile only widened as he turned to the maiden beside him. He had known her only a handful of months, and yet her voice was more glad to him than all the familiar silences of the valley.

"I am pleased that you so honour it with your praise," he said, not without a trace of merriment.

She swatted at his arm. "Word of flattery form themselves ill on your lips, Master Elrond. Mayhap you would serve the tales of your wisdom better if you spoke only the plain truth."

He opened his mouth to tell her that indeed 'twas naught save the truth to him, for all that his laughter might seem to belie it. But there was a sudden tang of metal in the air, rank and warm and bitter, bitter indeed. His gaze fell from her face, suddenly wan and cold in the bright sunlight, and then he saw. There was a great rent at the shoulder of her gown, and beneath it, he could see an ugly wound, blackened with poison. Blood spilt from it in crimson gouts, running over his trembling hands, staining his clothes, and soaking his dark hair, plastering it to his face, which was now as pale as hers. He tried to press his hands to the wound, to staunch the flow of blood, but his own limbs would not obey him, and shook with a sudden fearful palsy.

Celebrían looked up at him with desperation on her fair face, the blue of her eyes swallowed by pupils dilated with fear. "Traitor." she whispered, and was gone from him, the fingers of her ring-less right hand clawing at the fabric of his robes, tearing at the fine velvet like some wild animal, even in death.

And with the abruptness of dreaming, he was no longer there, although her blood still incarnadined his hands. He stood on barren and wasted ground, thick dust choking him, filling his lungs until he could no longer breath without fire lancing through him. Sulphurous fumes hung in the air, and what little light there was, was a deep, baleful crimson that darted in illusory flames across his face. The earth was uneven beneath his feet, a raw morass of tumbled boulders through which poisoned and stagnant streams straggled like dying serpents. He gagged, the back of his left hand pressed to his mouth, the palm turned outwards as if to ward off some desperate evil.

But in the next moment, he realised that what terror he had thought he had felt before had been nothing but a mirage, a faint image of the dire truth. For he stood in deep shadow, and, craning his neck, he began to understand. Barad-dûr loomed over him, the dark slits of its windows leering evilly from far above. And the great door was creaking open.

He tried to run; but he could not.

He tried to hide; but there was nowhere to hide.

He reached for his sword; but he wore no sword.

Instead, appalled, he lifted his ruined and wasted right arm until it was level with his face. He beheld that on his first finger, where his wedding band should sit, there instead lay Vilya, bright, and cruel, and blue as the lost skies. And, on his fourth finger, Nenya matched it.

He stood in the Land of Shadow, with the Rings of Power upon his hand, his useless, crippled hand, and Sauron the Deceiver knew his every thought and deed, and he had no will of his own.

There was a flash of terrible fire, and he saw the heights of Oilossë wreathed in dancing flames, burning, burning, ever burning until all lights went out, and there was silence in which the Music could never be heard again.

Elrond awoke, gasping for breath, clawing his way up out of the tangle of dreams which lay so heavily about him, as if they were real, tangible things. His breath caught and burned in his throat, and the imagined stench of Mordor fouled his mouth. 

He realised that he felt his right hand as if from a distance, as if it did not entirely belong to him, except for the pain which was ever-present now. But even that did not surprise him, and he felt nothing but a sense of terrible regret, that everything which once was, was now undone.

Slowly, he rose to a crouch, wrapping his cloak around him, and forcing his fingers to clench around the hilt of his sword, to remember the patterns of wear on the ancient pommel. Aching, he pulled himself to his full height, and, drained by every step, made his way from the tent. With a start of distress he saw that the temporary encampment was busy with the activities of the morning - if morning it could be said to be - and that he had slept longer than any other, save only the youngest children.

"Awake at last." Ulrang glanced up from the fire he was tending, a brittle and crackling map held in one hand. He nodded at one of his men, who handed the elf-lord a cup of strong, bitter tea brewed from the rapidly dwindling stock of herbs and fragrant barks. Elrond took a sip, grimacing at the taste, but was glad nonetheless for the heat which washed through him, its fumes clearing the miasma of sleep from his clouded head.

"If someone had roused me." he grumbled.

"Then you should have been no use to man nor beast before the next sennight was out," the Easterling said tersely, but there was an undercurrent of worry in his voice there for those who were accustomed to detecting such things to hear.

With a start, Elrond hastily reviewed the weeks of their trudging march, and understood that, although he had not noticed it at the time, he had indeed been allowed to sleep some time beyond the curtailed rest of his fellows each and every night. He scowled. "I have strength enough."

"That is not what Thranduil tells me," Ulrang remarked almost sardonically, sketching battle-lines in the dry earth with the tip of one finger. 

"If we thought it would do us more good, we would have you up all night scrubbing shields, Master Elrond," a gruff voice interrupted from behind Elrond's left shoulder.

Turning, and bowing to Dáin, he could not help but laugh softly at this most unlikely of all alliances of Man, Elf, and Dwarf, for all his chagrin. "Very well. I see that I am outnumbered and outmanoeuvred, and there is naught that I can do to dissuade you." He lowered himself to the ground with that same, laconic grace of old, settling on the dusty ridge that encircled the fire pit. "I only ask that once I have awoken, you do not keep me from the deeds which must be done."

"None of us have that luxury." Thranduil scuffed the dirt with one foot, peering over the Easterling's shoulder at the ancient map, his blue eyes distant and bitter.

~*~

The column trudged steadfastly onwards across the Brown Lands that lay before Mordor. The stench of death and decay was heavy in the still air, overlaid with notes of old burning, the dusty tang of ash, and the horror of scorched flesh. Aside from the grim and silent host, nothing living moved in that dead land, apart from the patrols of orcs which crept across the surface of the earth like foul ants, grinning and leering in their triumph. Ruined eyes stared out from tattered faces, full of hatred and malice for everything that once had walked beneath the clean light of Anor, and the silvered brightness of Ithil. Already the column had skirmished with them, not daring to leave one alive to report back to the Lord of the Black Tower, and not a few of this new-forged alliance had for the first time whetted their blades on orc-necks.

But there were few even of the orc-kind in this barren and desolate land. There was no work for them here, where neither Elf, nor Man, nor Dwarf had dwelt since years beyond count, and the column mostly went onwards unharried and almost unwatched, save for the eyes of a solitary eagle, drifting high on the winds. Gwaihir the Windlord was dead, but his kinsman had come from afar, and his long journeying had seen broken ice and grey-green seas, and he remembered places where the shadow did not yet fall. His eye was long and keen, and the light in its golden depths reflected the snows on Mount Taniquetil, and the bright spring in the gardens of Lórien. But he only watched, and sorrowed with his watching master.

And the land, little immediate danger though it exposed them to, brought them little comfort either. This place was touched indeed by the foul sorceries of Mordor, and the restless gaze of the Eye ever prickled across them, searching, and waiting. Hopelessness seemed to cling to them, even with the dust on their cloaks. 

Almost unconsciously, Elrond reached under his tunic, feeling the silk-wrapped gem lying against his protruding ribs, slightly warm beneath his fingertips. Hope rose in him again, undaunted by the grim land below, and the dark sky above. The soft, comforting heat spread up his arm, returning some semblance of life to his diseased limb, some strength, although he guessed that that came rather more from his own belief in it, than from any innate properties. He sighed, and stumbled onwards.

Although the Eye was not yet upon them, the soaring eagle was not the only one to see their dogged progress through the Brown Lands.

The Emyn Muil rose to the heavens in jagged spires of rock to their right, its teeth tearing at the sky. Black and grey rock sheered up through the broken earth like the maw of some giant beast, and the shadowed valleys, deep and crooked, seemed ready to spill forth horrors untold.

Elrond felt a hollow uneasiness prickling in the back of his mind, the sense of observation, and of hatred. Seeking wisdom, he counselled Thranduil and Dáin to keep their banners furled. 

He had no colours of his own to announce that an elf-lord of the houses of old walked here, and beside the glimmer of the Silmaril it scarcely seemed to matter, and thus only Ulrang's banner flew, a dark flicker of cloth against the sky, barely noticeable, proclaiming nothing more than that he was and his people were Easterlings, Men of the Darkness.

But still, the Peredhel's discomfort was not quenched.

"Enough!" he called at last. "We shall make our midday meal here."

Thranduil quirked an eyebrow at him. "We could go further."

"The line is faltering, and there is a spring nigh, one that is not befouled by the Enemy. We shall have little enough rest and water soon enough."

They ate but a frugal meal, thin broth that was little more than water with a few herbs and roots cast into the pot, in which they softened wafers of _cram_, the waybread of the Dale, grey, and dry, for all that they were nutritious.

"Foul." Thranduil settled himself beside the peredhel lord, drawing his long legs up under his thick woolen cloak. A bowl of the gruel was balanced in one hand, and in the other he held a fragment of _cram_ which he was regarding with particular distaste.

"Dip it in the broth," Dáin suggested, although the King of the Lonely Mountain did not look as if he was any more enthralled by the prospect than the rest of the company.

"And spoil good broth?" Thranduil asked wryly.

Elrond smiled wanly at the pair, recognising that some understanding had been founded, against all hope, in these darkest of days. Returning his attention to his bowl as the wood-king chewed determinedly on the edge of a cake of _cram_, he crumbled his own waybread into his broth, until it became a non-descript brown-grey substance that was as unappetising as it was needful. Resolutely, he spooned it into his mouth, ignoring his stomach which rebelled against the very idea.

A relentless pain was growing behind his eyes, dulling his senses, miring his thoughts in grey mist. His stomach clenched with sudden, formless fear. He clutched at the chain which hung around his neck, and was almost surprised to find that it was still there, still held taut by the two Rings suspended upon it. A sudden fever flushed through him, and he gasped for breath, reaching out desperately for Celebrían, so distant, and yet so near.

__

I do not know, meleth-nín. I do not know, she replied to his unasked question. She was afraid, and he was grieved that he might have brought this fear upon her, this sense of utmost dread, bleak as the land around him.

__

You did not. But she spoke no more, offering him wordless comfort, but hiding her fears from him.

Elrond blinked, and realised that Thranduil has asked him a question.

"You feel it too, do you not?" the Sindar Elf asked. "We are being watched."

"Aye." Elrond shuddered as Celebrían's awareness drifted away, and the darkness reasserted itself.

"And I would guess that that is but a shadow of what you feel." Thranduil's eyes were sharp and grave, deep-shadowed by the march.

"Aye . But if you feel it too, then let us move quickly. It is not safe for us here."

They broke camp in haste, tamping fires down with dirt, filling flasks from the spring line. Not one among them did not hold a weapon to hand as they set off, huddled close together, the children marching in the midst of the column when they could, carried when they could not.

Together, at the fore of the host, were the leaders, stern-faced and grim: Thranduil, golden as a fair sapling, Dáin, bent and wearied with age, his eyes angry, and his axe tight-clasped, Ulrang, unreadable except in his sorrow and determination, and Elrond, tall and fell as the greatest of his ancestors, his eyes star-bright, his damaged hand tight around the hilt of his sword. Together, they strode forward, into darkness and into doubt, the ragged peaks of the Emyn Muil marching along their right flank.

By Elrond's guess, it was afternoon now, turning towards the darkness of the night, although little light could be seen to judge one way or another. 

He saw - or thought he saw - fleeting shadow-shapes slipping through the deeper darkness at the foot of the mountains, silent and deadly in their determination. He quickened his pace, eager to break free of the unseen pursuers, his lanky gait covering the ground easily, much to the consternation of Dáin.

But, in the end, even that was not enough to save them.

They had come into a narrow defile between a jutting shoulder of the Emyn Muil and an outcropping of razor-edged rocks which glistened with water even in the faint light. It was silent, and nothing stirred, but that was nothing usual in these lands. The sky was almost shut out entirely. For a moment, Elrond thought he caught the scent of green things that grow, but he shook his head. Nothing grew here, and most certainly nothing wholesome and green.

Even Elven ears could not have detected them beneath the soft footfalls of the column, and their tread was light indeed. Within the space of a heartbeat, swordsmen had slipped from the ravine walls, and archers bent their bows from the towering rocks, threatening a deadly hail.

"Orcs!" Thranduil spat.

"Not orcs but Men," Elrond said quietly, watching the steady blades of those nearest to him. Indeed, the figures were too tall and slight to be orcs, but he did not doubt their allegiance to Sauron for all that.

Slowly, one Man detached himself from the others. He was hooded and cloaked, and his face was hidden from view. Elrond noted that he limped slightly, and that, although his right hand held a curved orc scimitar confidently, he had no left arm. On that side, his cloak fell limply along the emaciated line of his body. He was tall for a Man, and a strand of dark hair escaped from under his hood, drifting across the empty space where surely his face was, if only it could be seen.

"What have we here?" he drawled in a voice cracked by dust and heat and dirt. "More scum in these lands come to rob us?"

Elrond felt his lip curl in defiance, realising that this might well be the end of all things. The Silmaril burnt warm and kind and fierce below his faltering heart, and he took what little strength he could from the knowledge of that. "We come to take back that which is ours."

"And we come to deny it to you." The stranger's shoulders tightened beneath his enveloping cloak.

"So you give everything to the Dark Lord, even our lives?" Dáin took a step forward, and spat at the Man's feet.

The Man laughed coarsely. "We serve none save ourselves - unless it be the Lords of the West, and the Lord of Rivendell which is lost. And surely he is dead." And he fell silent.

The sword clattered from Elrond's hand. If he could have spared a sideways glance, he would have seen that the others looked dumbfounded, although their hands remained true on their weapons.

"Reveal yourself, if you deem the truth of any more worth than the lies of Sauron the Deceiver!"

The stranger laughed again, bitter and cold, and shrugged his hood back from his head, smoothing it to his shoulders with a negligent hand, his sword trapped between his elbow and his thin frame. His hair - or what was left of it - shone black as a raven's wing in the half-light. To one side, it was burnt close to his skull, frizzled by terrible heat. Half his face was marked by partly healed burns, pink and shiny, stretching from temple to jawline. He was drawn and gaunt, but his eyes shone with defiant starlight, grey as the mists of dawn over the Western Seas. 

And Elrond knew his face. Tears sprang to his eyes, streaking paths through the grime on his cheeks.

Surely this could not be. Through doubt, and through darkness.

He took a step forward, and found the stranger's sword pressed to his throat. 

"If you ask, I shall kill you slowly, but if you do not, I shall not spare the time to ensure it before disposing of the rest of your foul kindred."

It was difficult to speak; almost impossible to frame words, so tight with memory and grief was his throat.

"But I am your kindred. Do you not recognise me, ion-nín?" 

"What trickery is this?"

The growing dread had resolved itself, and he saw it for what it was. Briefly, he thought of the Rings of Power slung about his neck, and of the Silmaril by his side, but he dismissed them in an instant. Keeping his hands in plain view, he slipped the golden band from his forefinger. It came away easily now, all too easily. The gold was warm, and he could see the patterns etched on it by age and use. "Your mother gave this to me."

There was an unmistakable nick where a child's flailed blade had caught his hand, drawing blood and marking the softer metal.

The stranger beckoned one of his companions forward, a Númenórean by his countenance, pale and dark-haired, his grey eyes keen and sad. The Man held a flickering taper close, and together they examined the ring, the simple gold, and the old markings.

There was no time to react. The stranger's face contorted with sudden fury, and he paced closer, drawing a slender-bladed knife from its sheath at his waist. Elrond found himself backed against the canyon wall, staring into anger-dilated eyes. "Where did you get this?"

"From the Lady Celebrían, your mother."

"You lie."

"Am I so much changed?" Elrond closed his eyes in momentary sadness, but made no move to defend himself, even when the sharp point prodded precariously close to his jugular. "When you were but two years of age, you nearly drowned me in the second pool, and only your mother saved me. And, later, you could not understand ever why I let her depart into the Ancient West."

"Adar?" The fierce, grim face was suddenly vulnerable. "Can it truly be you?"

"It is. Elrohir, ion-nín, it is." 

Trembling fingers traced the sunken line of his jaw, and it was only a moment before he lifted his own to mirror the actions. Surely this was only a delusion, fever-born madness. Soon, it would fade like silver mist upon a meadow at dawn, fleeting beauty that pierces the heart like a dart, and then is gone forever. Surely, within a heartbeat, he would alone with his grief and his loss, and the echoes of his sorrow in Celebrían's mind. But the vision did not fade, and the fingers of his son's remaining hand, callused by war and fire, turned his chin slightly to expose the faint line of pale scar tissue left by that long-gone incident, on a fine summer's day in Imladris, when all the world seemed fair and new. So very long ago.

He looked upon Elrohir, the angled line of his brows so alike unto his own, the crinkled laughter lines at the corner of his weary grey eyes such a startling reminder of Celebrían, although they were drawn tense by fear and doubt. It was as if the younger Elf walked with a shadow ever behind his shoulder, its chill, pale fingers touching his dark hair and sapping the heat from him, and all the joy which had once been his. So very long ago. For Elladan was dead, gone beyond hope of recall until the Lord of Mandos chose to release his fëa to new life, and Elrohir could no more forget than his father could his lost twin.

Thus it was that Elrond wept even in his joy, his broad shoulders, frail now with illness and approaching death, shaking convulsively. With his healer's instincts of old, he brushed the cloak back from Elrohir's ruined left side. The sleeve of his tunic was pinned to his jerkin, and it was mottled with bloodstains, both the dull black-brown of old blood, and the livid crimson of new. It was this latter which finally convinced Elrond. His son bled, but it was proof indeed that he lived yet.

"Ion-nín." He cast his good arm around the younger Elf's shoulders, and held him tight, crushing him in a desperate embrace. "Pen-nín tithen." Their breathing came in ragged gasps, too glad and too sorrowful for mere words, and it seemed that although they stood yet under the charred sky of Middle-earth in the darkest of days, a little of the light of Valinor was laid upon them, wondrous beyond the reckoning of mortal Men. And they were revealed in their power, and in their glory, for it seemed to those who looked upon them that they were great lords both fair and fell, and that in them, the blood of Melian, and of King Greycloak her spouse ran true. They turned their eyes away, and wondered on it.

"Beyond hope, and beyond darkness, I find you now, ion-nín." He cast a questioning eye at the bloodied sleeve, and Elrohir nodded in acquiescence.

"And I you, father." He turned his head away, hissing with sharp pain as Elrond drew the cloth from the crudely bandaged stump. It was indeed a horrible sight, and for all his years, the elder Peredhel quailed, and fought against the nausea which arose within him, and the black bile of hatred against he who had been the cause of this and so much other pain and suffering. The arm had been severed just below the shoulder. The stump which remained was raw and scarred with dark burns, the flesh, although untouched by putrefaction, pale and wan beneath the markings, and shards of snapped bone gleamed yellow-white through it. It was healing, slowly, but healing; this monstrous deformity. Elrond probed it with delicate fingers, and could find little that he could do to aid it, save to suggest some poultices which might be seen to have properties of healing, if ever again they came into the lands where such wholesome herbs grew.

When Elrohir spoke, it was as if his voice came from afar, from some land which had seen neither the light of the sun nor of the moon, stilted and harsh, fading into silence, and rising into crescendos of sorrow and toil. He told then of how they had stood on the two orc-mounds on the Morannon, the Lords of the West with their banners high and bright and grim, there, before the Black Gate of Mordor. He told of the coming of the eagles, of Gwaihir, and all his brethren, swift and bronzed in the north wind. Of Éomer King, and men of the Riddermark, those of Gondor, of Lossarnach, and the fiefs, of the Grey Company from the North, and of Imrahil of Dol Amroth, in whom the Elven blood still shone.

His face grew pale, and his hand trembled as a Man palsied by great old age; his father took it, and held in both his own, the broad, strong healer's hands now cold as never had been their want, but their power not yet dimmed.

So Elrohir went on, and his face was proud and stern even as the greatest of his forefathers; but there were tears in his grey eyes, and upon his pale cheeks.

"We waited, and although we were assailed by a great host, yet still we did not utterly give in to despair, for wise were your choices, my father." Elrond opened his mouth to demur, but the expression on his son's face silenced him. ". And wise was Mithrandir, arrayed in white, and valiant indeed were those who stood with us, even at the very Teeth of Mordor. We fought on, and night came upon us, swift and unbidden, but it seemed to us that 'twas darker than the Night of Valinor, and the stars were put out above us, and the shrieking of the Nazgûl grew great indeed, and terrible. Even as the darkness fell, we fought on, and our swords hewed the helms of our enemies, and our swords were dark and fell with their blood. But there came a time when we wished only for darkness, and for surcease. For away to the south, in the Land of Shadow, the Dark Lord himself put on the One Ring that Frodo of the Shire and the strength of the West had long held against him, seeking only its destruction. Alas, at last the quest of the Ringbearer failed, and he was taken, or so we guess, we who live yet, taken in some passage of that terrible land, and the burden was torn from him, and his tale is sundered forever from the tales of this world.

"For the Dark Lord took up his Ring, and it was placed upon his finger, and he was whole again. He wreathed the peaks and dungeons of Barad-dûr with foul reeks, and with flame and smoke, and for us, watching amidst the hue and cry, the southern sky grew bright and terrible. For then the host of orcs, and of the Men of the Darkness fell silent, and even the voices of the Nazgûl were dimmed, as a great wall of fire came upon us. It touched them not, but many fell in that hour; the great part of the six thousands with whom we rode. Éomer King, and the Riders of Rohan, Prince Imrahil and the Men of the great fiefdoms and realm of Gondor, and the Men of Arnor, grim and dour-handed; Legolas of Mirkwood, and Gimli of Erebor, and Peregrin Took, and the eagles of the air." He paused, and his eyes were distant, fixed on some horror the others could not see. "And Elladan. For we stood at the forefront of battle, on the crown of the hill, my brother and I, and as the reek came upon us, he cast himself down upon me, with words of fraternity that I cannot yet bear to utter. So it was that even as he died, he was my shield. My left side was to Mordor, and still it burnt, but I did not die, although still I might reckon it better if I had." He touched his right hand to the ruined stump, and his eyes were grim and dark. "Long I burnt in fever, but it did not consume me, and I awoke to find that one of the few others to survive had hewn my scorched arm from me, and left me crippled to walk upon this Middle-earth."

There was utter silence in the ravine, and no one there dared to break it. The very wind seemed to die away. Elrond was ashen-grey, and Thranduil''s eyes were as cold as the night of the Void. Dáin's broad, craftsman's fingers tapped his leather belt restlessly, and none could read in his bearded face what he thought of these tidings.

Elrohir swallowed again before he continued. "I saw then that our host was utterly destroyed, and naught but their bodies remained. But of Mithrandir there was no sign."

Elrond bowed his head. "He was taken into Barad-dûr."

The younger peredhel nodded slowly, his suspicions confirmed. "And yet among all the waste and ruin of battle, there were some tokens of things passed which had survived the rage." He inclined his head almost imperceptibly to the tall Númenórean. The Man carried a longbow, and a quiver of arrows at his back, but the elf-lord's attention was caught by the fact that he wore a sword at both hips. Carefully, almost reverently, he unfastened the one which sat on the right side, and held it out. There was sorrow in his eyes, and the shadow of grief, grief for men and for cities both. He bowed, and held out the sword to Elrond in both his hands.

"It seems that even the flames of Mordor cannot yet consume Andúril, Flame of the West, Narsil reforged, my lord."

Elrond closed his hand around the familiar hilt, feeling burning tears tightening his throat. It was indeed Andúril, and no other. If he had needed proof that his foster-son was dead, now he beheld it before him. The noble blade was smirched with soot and ash, nicked at the edges, but unbroken.

Then Elrohir's hand gripped his and dropped something cool and smooth into his unresisting palm. Looking down, he focused only slowly. The Elessar, the Elfstone wrought by the hand of Celebrimbor in the form of an eagle with wings outstretched. He stroked his forefinger along the familiar lines, remembering when Celebrían had worn it, riding out of the morning down over the moors into the deep valley of the Last Homely House.

__

I was wondering when you would remember me, Celebrían's voice was acerbic, but he knew she had been weeping; he could hear the ripple of tears in her tone as the running rills of the Bruinen in winter, and joy too, joy born of the deepest despair. _Oh Elrond._

I know . I know, he said, reaching out for her, entwining his thoughts with hers. 

"Mother?" Elrohir guessed.

"Aye."

The younger peredhel broke into a wide, yet oddly shy grin. "Tell her."

"She already knows."

Ulrang watched the exchange from a distance, his eyes darting from one to the other in an attempt to follow the complexities what happened. As the bowmen relaxed their guard, he sidled cautiously closer to Thranduil, and spoke in the wood-king's ear. "His son?"

"Aye, one of twins." Thranduil's voice was barely audible. "They rode to war in company with my son, as much as any know, but mine shall never come riding back to me beneath the skies of this Middle-earth." Turning his head, the Easterling saw that the Elf's face was fierce and grey, drawn into deep lines of sorrowing grief.

"I am sorry."

"There is no time for sorrow." Thranduil fingered the hilt of his sword. "But I would have vengeance."

"Then you have my pledge in vengeance."

The Elf glared at him for a moment, and then dropped his eyes. "Then you have my thanks, for that is all I have left to give you."

But neither Elrond nor Elrohir had ears for such words at this time, and they shared their grief, and for a little while it was lifted.

TBC

~*~*~*~*~*~*~


	11. The West Awakens

****

Desolation

Chapter Eleven

Thanks to **Lalaith** and **Isis** for betaing this, and to everyone for reading and reviewing so kindly.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Elrohir shivered and pulled his cloak more tightly around his shoulders with his one remaining hand. He cast a covert look at his father, who was hunched over the campfire, stirring a pot of bubbling stew and talking animatedly with the Easterling chief. 

A cold fist of dread clamped around the younger peredhel's throat despite his father's apparent cheer. Elladan's death had ruined him; cast his mind into a desolation which had outlived even his physical sickness, and from which only burning anger had drawn him back. But now he felt the same gentle touch again as he looked upon his father, his black hair caught by the drifting wind, his broad forehead pale and translucent in the firelight. It seemed as if the east wind should surely blow him away, far away across theBelegaer, beyond the drifting mists and the curve of Endor, to the white sanded coasts of Aman, to walk in sorrow beneath the vaulted arches of the Halls of Awaiting. The clever, long-fingered hands which had once lifted him up so easily when he had fallen, the strong arms which had held him as a child, now seemed but a shadow and a dream of a forgotten Age which darkness could not yet reach.

He sighed and stood upright, dislodging a scattering fall of scree with the toe of his boot. It tumbled down into the crevice below him, and was lost to sight. 

As true darkness had fallen, they had moved surreptitiously back into this grim valley in the Emyn Muil, where the renegade band had held camp these last months. It was as well disguised as anything could be in this time, sheltered by overhanging arms of rock which enfolded it, blocking out the fierce sky. Dank and unwholesome mosses hung from the cliff walls in rank clots, but an untainted spring bubbled and gurgled at the upper end of the valley, and its stream bisected the tumbled floor, flowing from pool to cool green pool in murmuring cascades. Pausing briefly, Elrohir imagined that he could hear in its dissonant music an echo of the melodies of the Bruinen, and hear his mother's laughter, and his father's rising to join it.

He shook his head, and, stooping, grabbed the final empty water skin from the pile of replenished ones which lay at his feet. Dipping it into the current, he wedged it firmly between his elbow and his body before jamming the cork in place. A handful of long strides brought him to the ruddy flickering of the fire.

"Here, Adar: you needed water."

"My thanks." Elrond smiled briefly, and carefully dribbled water from the proffered skin into the pot before him, sniffing at the steam which arose from it.

"You should not be cooking." Elrohir settled himself on the ground beside his father, resisting only with difficulty the impulse to rest his head on his shoulder as he had done so often as an elfling. Unnoticed by either, Ulrang slipped silently away.

"I shall not poison you by accident, I promise, ion-nín," Elrond said lightly, his gaze never wavering from the cooking pot. But the line of his jaw, made only more severe by his fading, was tense and grim.

"You know that is not what I meant."

"I know." Elrond turned his head, and his son saw that his grey eyes shone with glints of crimson flame in the firelight, and deep runnels were carved through the grime on his cheeks; he was crying. "Ai, pen-nín tithen, do not remind me that I have found you only to lose you, that although your death was not there to sunder us, mine shall be." He clenched his weakened hand into a fist, resting it on his knee in a futile attempt to stay its trembling.

Elrohir dropped his eyes. He had not meant to precipitate these words, had secretly hoped that if they were not spoken, then they could not be true. Now he had not even that veil of falsehood behind which to hide.

"Adar…"

"Shush…" Elrond tucked his arm around his son's shoulders and held him close. Unbidden, the words of an old song sprang to his mind, a lullaby which his mother had sung to him in the house upon the cliffs above the Havens of Sirion, and he in his turn began to sing, soft and low as the autumn wind whistling through beech leaves. The sullen valley seemed to fall away, and the leaves danced once more in the woods of Doriath, and the air was sweet in the caverns of Menegroth, so very long ago, before the world was broken and the seas sundered. Elrohir muffled his sobs against his father's shoulder, tears streaking his cheeks, his eyes red, his hand clutching at the folds of his father's cloak. Eventually, even his sobs subsided, and Elrond's song trailed off into a silence which smelt of the sea, and of the springtime long ago.

"Let me at least cook for you once more."

Elrohir sniffed prosaically. "Well, if you must do so, you should return your attention to the meal before it burns to ashes."

~*~

Elrond rested his bowl on his knees, grateful for something beside _cram _and gruel to eat. The company was arrayed in circles around the various fires, and silent shadows passed between them, garbed in black and in grey, and in all the colours of Gondor and of Rohan. On a high pinnacle of rock at the entrance to the valley, his keen sight caught the shifting movement of a sentry, even though no glint or clink of metal betrayed the Man. The evening's talk was subdued, and no laughter lit the night.

The tall, stern Númenórean who had stood by Elrohir's side and who had borne Andúril, sat cross-legged beside him, the leaping flames casting eerie tongues of scarlet radiance across his face. His expression was pensive, and his long, slender hands – _scholar's hands_ - moved restlessly, the fingers tapping now at the hilt of his sword, and now on the ground before him, sketching seven circles, one inside the other, only to rub them out again with a brisk wave of his hand. His companions watched him, but made no comment, and Elrond thought he saw sorrow in their eyes – and pride.

Looking up, the Master of the Last Homely House realised that Elrohir, too, had been watching the Man's movements.

"I think it is time for your tale now, my friend," Elrohir said quietly, and there was compassion in his grave face, although even his father could not read what it was for.

"Indeed, although I wish it were not." The Man grinned ruefully, and nodded to the hooded figure next to him. The soldier groaned, and stretched his gangling limbs, cracking the joints as he stood up.

"As you bid me, cousin." His tone was light and almost jovial, but his face in the firelight, while still showing vestiges of youth, was grim, etched with weary lines of grief.

The Gondorian watched him for a moment as he turned away from the encampment and began to scale the goat path which wended its way up the gully's walls. "My kinsman, as you see." He sighed, and there was an odd light in his grey eyes. "Nay, let us be done with it. He is Amrothos, my cousin, and the Prince of Dol Amroth since his father's death before the Black Gate. I fear what vengeance may drive him to now that he has naught else, neither father, nor brothers, nor sister. And I…" He halted, and his gaze grew very distant. "I am – or rather, was – the Steward of Gondor which is now fallen, even as Númenor once fell." He lifted one hand to his brow, and Elrond saw there a great seal ring, an onyx of unusual splendor set in mithril and engraved with the crest of the South Kingdom, and of the House of Mardil.

"Lord Faramir?" Elrond asked quietly.

"Aye." He dropped his hand, and the sudden brilliance went out of the dark stone. "Although I know not how you come to know my name." 

The elf-lord smiled, and looked up at the heavens as if seeking the star of his father. "In Rivendell, many things of the world were known." His smile broadened at an old memory. "But in truth, it was the Lord Aragorn, my foster son, who brought news to me that a second son had been born to the Steward of Gondor."

Faramir bit his lip, and stared glumly into the depths of the fire. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but whatever he might have been about to say was forestalled by the return of the Prince of Dol Amroth from the deepening gloom of the night. And in his wake came another figure, bearing a simple box in both hands. A mere youth he seemed as he stepped into the circle of flickering firelight, tall and slender as a young willow, beardless beneath his heavy helm, but he bore a sword at his hip with confidence, and the flames glinted off the intricately chased leaf mail of the Rohirrim, a deep, burnished gold beneath the streaks of dried blood. 

Faramir rose, and bowed slightly, clasping both of his hands over one of the warrior's, holding it tight against the face of the box.

Elrond wondered at the gesture, but soon the moment had passed, and the newcomer settled into the circle, placing the box reverently before him. He seemed to hesitate, his hand hovering over the catch, and then Faramir forestalled him, opening it gently, and lifting out its sole treasure. It was the winged crown of Gondor, a strange sight indeed in this place, wrought in pearls and silver, and white metal, with seven gems of adamant encircling it, and a jewel more magnificent than all the rest to surmount it.

At length, although none had tired of looking upon it in silence, the Steward spoke again. "I brought this out from Rath Dínen, the Silent Street, on the day when Minas Anor fell, and the Tower of Watch was cast down. All else fell to ruin, and the forces of Mordor took the city, but we would not allow the crown of the kings of the line of Elendil to fall into their hands."

Elrond took it gently into his own, turning it over and over, remembering all those who had worn it through the long years of the Third Age.

"So some yet escaped from the ruin of the White City?"

"Aye. Most of those whom you see here were left for its protection, or for the defence of the West Road against the enemy who were then in Anórien. Three thousand of the Rohirrim were left to that task, under the command of Elfhelm, and those who remain fight with us now, or else in the hills and dales of the White Mountains, where as yet the sound of the sea is strong, and the Orcs do not like to come." He paused once more, his face very pale, his fingers twitching ceaselessly. The young Rohirric soldier took his hand and held it, stilling the restless movements. "When the Enemy had penetrated even to the higher circles of the City, and we saw that neither valour nor sacrifice could save it, then we made our way through hidden paths out onto Mount Mindolluin, and thence into the mountains. From that place, we came hence, fighting when we could, and resting when we had to."

"Then Gondor is no more, and Rohan is gone," Ulrang said wonderingly. "Long my people have desired this, and yet I find when it comes, it is as a hammer stroke to me, and my heart is heavy with it." His guttural accent was thick with some strange emotion.

"Say not so," the youth spoke up, touching one slender hand to the horse emblem at his breast. "For it shall not be so while I live, my troth on that." Glancing uncertainly at Faramir, he disentangled his hand from that of the Steward, and slowly began to unbuckle his helmet. The helm came free easily, and pale golden hair poured down the warrior's back. 

Elrond resisted the temptation to stare in amazement at such a turn of events. From the corner of his eye, he was aware that Thranduil was not nearly so successful.

"I am Éowyn of Rohan," she declared, tilting her chin up as if daring them to deny the justice of her claim. "My uncle is dead, and my brother is dead, and so must this lordship be mine although I no longer have any desire for it." Her face was very beautiful, but very harsh, her eyes flinty and dark.

"She is the queen of Rohan," Faramir added softly, and no one demurred.

There seemed to be little inclination for further words, such was the weight of those already spoken, and at length Elrond touched his son's shoulder tentatively. "Take the crown to your sister, when this is finished."

Elrohir frowned in confusion. "To Arwen? But surely with Estel dead…?"

Elrond smiled sadly. "She bears his child, the child who shall be the next king of Gondor if we do not fail."

The younger peredhel bowed his head, hiding the surprise which lit his face like a sudden star. "It shall be so, my father."

~*~

When they marched the next morning, it was in silence, slipping from one pool of shade to the next across the broken and ruined surface of the Brown Lands, their passage scarce more than the whispering of the winds. The infernal night of Mordor did them unwonted surface, and for a time they were hidden from the prying eyes of their enemies.

Marching at the head of the column, Elrond turned his face to the West, and for a moment he felt a breath of wind on his face, sweet and clear from Lebennin and the Ethir Anduin. And in that moment, he saw, or thought he saw, through a sudden rent in the roiling clouds, a single star sinking far into the West, out of the sea towards Valinor. And then it was gone, as if it had never been, but the warmth of Maedhros' Silmaril beneath his ribs spoke otherwise.

As they stumbled onwards, footsore and weary, their hearts leaden with griefs old and new, their minds never at rest, their throats parched and their eyes gritty with wind-blown dust, the Emyn Muil fell away to their right, its peaks and gap-toothed ridges fading into a distant smudge against the horizon. Before them, the Dagorlad, the Battle Plain, unfurled itself in all its hideous splendour, mile after mile of unalloyed devastation. Elrond wondered that it should end here, where he had trodden with such high hopes in the dying days of the Second Age, and that all the long years of the Third should be thus forgotten and wasted, their achievements and their joys cast down, and their defeats raised up.

But even the Dagorlad was not as it had been, for here and there the coarse sand was scorched and melted to obsidian smoothness by new heat, and the stench of putrefaction hung heavier in the air, until all were forced to cover their faces before they could continue, and Elrond found himself once more carrying the Silvan child who had wept by the shores of Esgaroth. The vile reek of the Dead Marshes away to their right rose up to join it, mingling in a cacophony of rotting death.

And yet there was nothing else for them: the dead world behind, and their purpose clear before them, as with every mile the jagged heights of the walls of Mordor, enclosing the Cirith Gorgor and the Morannon, rose higher into the darkened sky.

And so it was by night that they came on the wings of the storm, and made camp not a handful of leagues distant from the Black Gate. In the darkness they heard the fell cries of Mordor, and steeled their hearts for the morrow.

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TBC

Reviews are very much welcome.


	12. Into the Breach I

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Desolation

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Chapter Twelve

Thanks to **Isis** and **Lalaith** for betaing this.

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Not one among them slept that night, huddled as they were in the lee of one of the slag heaps that pricked the surface of the Morannon. The harsh wind blew from Mordor, flinging grey dust in their tired eyes, swirling their cloaks in restless eddies before falling away into an uneasy stillness. A heavy reek hung in the air, foul beyond all description, the stench of death, and of hatred, and a pall of grim determination lay over the encampment. They lit no fire, and the night seemed very black indeed.

And yet on a time before the coming of the unseen dawn, there was a chink in the clouds, and from far above a solitary pair of eyes gazed down. Grey they were, and fair was he who looked down in sorrow, for he had been born in Gondolin before its fall, and had seen the passing of many things, and walked the streets of Elven Tirion, and come to the halls of Valimar beyond all hope. Darkened was his gaze that night, and bitter was the tune in his heart, and yet still he burned with hallowed light, Gil-Estel, the Star of High Hope, even as had for years beyond count. He remembered the sorrows of the daughter of Galadriel in the high meadows of Valinor, and of Elwing his wife, in the tall tower looking out upon the Sundering Seas, and his heart was hardened, and full of love, and of grief.

But Elrond did not see the stray starlight. His gaze was bent upon the sword lying in his lap, and on the oily cloth he held. Dropping it for a second, he stared at his hands. Scholar's hands, Celebrían had called them, and laughed, as he had threaded them through her silver hair. Long, slender, graceful fingers, and broad palms. Hands more adept with pen and book than holding a sword. He stifled a bark of sardonic laughter, and wondered what she would say of them if she saw them now. The skin was so pale as to be translucent, chapped and raw from the wind and the hilt of his sword, open cracks across the palms seeping blood. The right was ridged with angry crimson fever lines, the muscles wasted almost to the bone, showing dully white through the pallor. He could barely hold his sword, the creeping lassitude almost a physical pain. Sighing, he wrapped the greasy rag around his useless hand, and began to polish the blade carefully, smoothing away the stains of blood and rust.

"It is time." A figure stepped forwards out of the darkness, and Elrond saw that it was Ulrang, tight-lipped and apprehensive. But for all his evident fears, he was garbed for war in the manner of his people, his armour gleaming with its alien splendour, a cloak of vivid scarlet flowing from his shoulders, his hair braided and beaded. One of the Fathers of Men he seemed, the Atanatari, who had come long ago into the West of the world before the sundering of the lands.

"Not since the dawning of days have our peoples fought together," Elrond said, "and yet I would gladly die by your side this day."

Ulrang bowed, his eyes dark with some unreadable emotion. "And I with you."

Slowly, Elrond rose to his feet, a tall figure, pale and almost skeletally thin, but with eyes that burnt with a light which had not been seen beneath the skies of this Middle-earth for many an Age. "The time is upon us; let us meet the day."

The Easterling clasped his arm in a warrior's grip, and nodded slowly.

Carefully, the two picked their way across the cratered, pockmarked ground, Man and Elf together, Ulrang's hand beneath the elf-lord's elbow when he stumbled in his weakness and would have fallen. Elrohir stood ready in the middle of the encampment, and Elrond wondered at the stubborn determination in his youngest son's face. An almost barbaric glory was about him, swathed in dark cloth, his face wan, and his eyes dark. Twin daggers were at his waist, their handles ornately carved, and the chased mail of Rohan gleamed beneath his cloak. But in his hands, he held Andúril, the Flame of the West, its blade keen and bright.

The runes inscribed along its length burnt with a pure, clear fire of their own, and the younger peredhel's hands seemed to tremble as he grasped it. Thranduil stood at his left, the Lord Faramir at his right, shoulder to shoulder with Éowyn of Rohan. But the sword lay across his forearms, raw and old, and his face was alight with it, terrible and ancient.

"My lord father." He stepped forward, and knelt at Elrond's feet, his head bowed in formal obeisance, the sword held out, the edges of the blade glimmering with the unseen starlight.

Elrond extended a single finger and traced the ornate carvings on the hilt.

"Take it."

Elrond blinked in sudden surprise.

"Take it; for him whom I called brother, he who was as a son unto you." Elrohir placed the sword in his father's unresisting hands.

For a long moment, he stared at it, feeling its weight lying heavily across his palms, the uncontrollable trembling of the muscles in his forearms, the coarse texture of his cloak against the raw skin at the back of his neck. It was an effort to breathe, to force the air in and out.

"Very well," he said at last, and straightened, but even as he did so, the sword slipped from his hands, the point burying itself in the glassy sand. The hilt clattered awkwardly against a protruding rock, dim echoes of the sound rolling out across the plain, and a cloud of crows rose squawking against the ruddy horizon. Twisting awkwardly, he picked it up, weighing it in his stronger left hand, tucking it into the crook of his arm. With the weaker fingers of his right hand, he fumbled at the buckle of his sword belt, slipping low around his too-thin hips. The brass was chilled beneath his fingertips, but it burnt him even as a terrible fire, and the engraved patterns were old and worn, but so familiar to him that he almost cried out for the loss of a world which was gone forever into the darkness.

"Here." He held the belt out, the muscles in his wasted arm beginning to spasm"Elrohir, please."

The younger peredhel took his father's sword, and for a long moment he simply looked upon it, remembering times when he had craved this boon so much. Now it was bitter, very bitter. He unsheathed the blade, and touched the naked metal to his forehead, and then to his lips. "I thank you, father," he said quietly.

Elrond smiled gently, a flash of his fierce, proud beauty of old showing in his face. "Be strong, dear child." He paused, looking out from the slight elevation over the motley army. The wind ruffled his dark hair, and he crinkled his eyes against its gritty cruelty. "I trust not to the strength of my arm," he murmured at last. "Not even to that of my left. If you would…" He halted, this latest evidence of the ravages of looming death robbing him of words.

There were tears in Elrohir's eyes, bright as starlight, as he stepped forward, a hank of silken cloth at the ready, and bound his father's left hand to the grip of the sword, the pommel lying flat against his wasted wrist. Elrond clasped his scarred right hand over the left, and hefted it aloft, swinging it in a wide, bright arc against the ugly sky. Even in this dim light, the blade shone with the light of a thousand gems, rainbows of light glimmering about it. 

"Utúlie'n aurë! Aiya Eldalië ar Atanatári, utúlie'n aurë!" he called out in the voice of one might amongst the Eldar, in the voice of days long since lost. "The day has come! Behold, people of the Eldar and Fathers of Men, the day has come!" He closed his eyes, fervently hoping that the words would not be so ill-fated as when first spoken by his kinsman as the day of the Battle of Unnumbered Tears had dawned.*

"Auta i lomë!" Elrohir and Thranduil took up the call, and soon it resounded from thousands of throats, a thunder of defiant rage. "The night is passing!"

"It is time." Ulrang touched the elf-lord's shoulder. "We should begin."

Elrond knelt on the hard ground in a small dell, pebbles digging into his knees, his hands resting lightly on his thighs. Without a word they gathered round: Ulrang and Thranduil, Elrohir, and Faramir of Gondor, and Éowyn of Rohan. Their faces were still and watchful like masks carved into living stone; only their eyes were alive, brilliant with inner fire. He reached under his tunic, feeling the warmth beneath his heart, hearing a song beyond living ken, feeling the answering chords in the slowing of his pulse, in the shifting of the winds against his skin. He held out the gem, slowly freeing it of its layers of cloth, and its light shone out, a beacon in the darkness, a brilliance beyond reckoning which shimmered in all their faces. One by one they reached out as if to touch it, and one by one they recoiled in fear and in awe. He himself remembered Maglor's mad longing, and the crimson light of need in Maedhros' eyes, and his spirit trembled within him

At long last, the Rohirric warrior stood forward. Her hands shook, and her face was white under its patina of grime and soot, but her face was set with the stubborn courage of her people. Deftly, despite her fears, Éowyn bound the sacred jewel to his brow, a beacon of all colours, and of none.

He thought he could hear the strands of the Noldolantë woven together into a new melody.

It was Elrohir who secured the strip of dark cloth around his head to veil the incandescent light. His hair hung in lank tangles about his face, and the filth on his cheeks was streaked and smeared with tears. His eyes were opaque with grief, but his thoughts were open to he who had known him e'en ere his birth.

"Do not cry, pen-nîn tithen." Elrond stroked a snarl of hair back from the younger Elf's face. "There is no shame in this death if the world lives yet, and you with it, my son."

"Wise in all lore is Master Elrond." Elrohir choked, shielding his eyes with one hand. "And yet may I not cry, Ada, for we shall win by your strength, and you lose by it?"

Elrond quailed at the force of the trust in his son's voice, the absolute faith for which he had no answer, being so devoid of it himself. He ducked his head and watched the sand trickling down the sides of the dell in dry rivulets. With a monumental effort of will he held back a sob, and pulled the hood which hung at his shoulders over his head.

The billowing wind which caught at his cloak seemed of a sudden to smell of _elanor_ and _niphredil_, and the soft, sweet decay of _mallorn_ leaves. He could see his home again, more clear before his eyes than the Dagorlad. The steep walls of the valley and the thick woods, lit by shafts of golden sunlight, the music of the Bruinen and of the streams. The Last Homely House, every winding path, every block of weathered stone, palest yellow in the early morning, safe until the very last. The rains of autumn, and the snows of winter, and the Hall of Fire in good cheer, and _her _voice upraised in song, and the toasts drunk the day she was wed to him, and the candles in their chamber that night as they lay together. Time lying lightly on the treetops like the first dews of autumn, and the laughter of children.

And yet even over this, he could see new woods, where the _mellyrn_ soared to the heavens in great silvered pillars, and the nightingales would sing until the ending of the world. The light brighter, more beautiful, untainted to his tainted eyes. A vision from beyond the sundered world, and the soft sighing of the breezes from Lórien to the furthest sea. And a touch on his forehead, light, in benediction, cold as night and death, warm as that gilded land. _We await you, child._

Elrond reeled as the vision departed, shaking his head to dispel the mist lurking on the fringes of his vision. And yet somehow in his wonder, he felt a new strength, begotten not of himself, nor of his failing heart, but of a high, old music to which there was as yet no stain. And there was something of _her _in it to, something of his Celebrían, of the silver light on the seas of Mithlond where he had courted her throughout the darkening of the years, and of the gentle cadence of her spirit.

__

Of course. Her voice was a mere whisper._ Did you think I would do nothing, my love?_

Meleth-nîn… He reached out to her, and she enveloped him, until he could almost feel her lips on his brow, her small, delicate hands framing his face.

__

Remembered…she murmured cryptically, and then she was gone.

Strong hands hooked beneath his elbows, and he stumbled to his feet, blinking as if he had come out of the darkness into a great light. A strange smile quirked the corners of his mouth.

"Utúlie'n aurë! Aiya Eldalië ar Atanatári, utúlie'n aurë!" he hollered again, the echoes of his voice seeming to consume the entire world. Even the mountains seemed like to tremble before it.

Far distant, there came the screech of the Nazgûl, but he raised his voice once more, and held his sword high, and the army roared out their purpose as one.

The Ringwraiths cried out once more, in fear and in dismay, and then all was silent.

In that silence, they poured across the Dagorlad, Men and Elves shoulder to shoulder, bright and dark and dim. There were marks of their kinships, few banners to fly aloft, and the insignia at their breasts was worn and grimed, and yet it mattered not, for their course was fixed and true.

The sky seemed to boil with dark clouds, lit within by some baleful light. Before them, the Black Gate spanned the Morannon, the walkway at its top barbed with orc spears, bristling menacingly in the half-light. The jeers from the defenders were borne on the wind, mocking and jubilant. With a twist of his stomach, Elrond realised that they were excited, relishing the fight to come, the blood to be shed, in stark contrast to those who marched at his back, grim and silent.

Moving at a steady paced they passed the two hillocks of shattered stone which guarded the entrance to the Morannon, piled up from years of labour by the orcs. Now, they were slimed and crusted with some unmentionable substance, the stones glassy where they pierced the muck. A single banner, spared the carnage only to be subject to utter defeat, fluttered forlornly in the breeze: the White Tree of Gondor, scion of the line of Telperion, besmirched with the blood of the slain.

Elrohir wretched, and turned his eyes away, and his father laid a hand of comfort upon his shoulder, tears stinging his own eyes.

"Thus fell all I knew," the Lord Faramir sighed, his eyes distant, turned towards the West, where, far off, a reek rose over the Anduin where it turned South towards Minas Tirith.

But they spoke no more and moved onwards, for Mordor lay before them. They passed the mounds, the stinking charnel house of a world long since lost, and the defile narrowed, rising inexorably towards the Black Gate. The Towers of the Teeth, Narchost and Carchost, rose up against the sky, blackened fangs bared against the endless night. As if of one mind, the company drew together like wild animals at bay, weapons ready in nervous hands.

But Elrond strode steadily at the fore, hooded and cloaked, a figure of majesty undaunted by the evil airs of Mordor and illness alike. Behind him came Elrohir, arrayed as a warrior of Rohan, but with the colours of Imladris, and of the line of Eärendil bound in his dark hair and in bands on his sleeves, torn from the insignia he had worn riding out from Rivendell so long ago. Hawkfaced with pride he was, immovable. Thranduil was at his side for the Moriquendi, the Elves who had never seen the light of the Two Trees in Valinor in the Day before days. Eowyn of Rohan and Faramir of Gondor for the Men of the Darkness, and the Men of Númenor admixed in this Middle-earth. And, his eyes dark and alien beneath drawn brows, his scarlet cloak whipping about his ankles, came Ulrang, for the Men of the Darkness, the Easterlings. He looked neither right nor left, but his hand was clenched tightly about the hilt of his sword. A strange smile played at his lips, as of one contemplating the incongruity of life.

The derisive howls of the orcs grew louder, more hostile, and the youngest of the company shrank back, and some few would have fled, if it had not been for their greater fear of what lay in the wide world beyond this foul valley.

It seemed an eternity before they drew up before the gate, although it was some scarce count of minutes since they had passed the mounds. They would not fight there, on the bones and flesh of the dead; they would not do Sauron's work for him.

Elrond slowed to a halt slightly before the others, resting the tip of Andúril in the scant soil at his feet, feigning nonchalance, although his whole posture was stern and noble, a lord come to treat with villainous tenants.

"Let the Lord of the Black Land come forth and speak with those who demand speech with him!" He spoke in a low voice, but his words carried far across the quiet land; even the orcs were silenced.

No one came.

"In the name of the Eldar, and of the Fathers of Men, I call him forth, who names himself Lord of Mordor. I call him forth for justice, and for judgement."

Still, no one came forth. Elrond risked a glance sideways at Thranduil who waited tense and alert.

"In the name of the Lords of the West, who have brought mercy and succour unto us many a time and oft, I call him forth, who names himself Lord of Mordor. I call him forth for justice, and for judgement."

It seemed for a long time that there would be no answer, that the malice of the Black Land would remain mute behind its strong walls until a time of its choosing.

There was a sudden scuffling behind the Gate, the sound of a body dragged across stone, flung violently from side to side.

A terrible shriek ripped out across the shallow vale, almost bestial in its pain.

The Gate creaked open with agonising slowness, and the Lieutenant of the Tower of Barad-dur, the Mouth of Sauron, rode forth, garbed and helmed in black, horrible to behold.

There was something thrown across his saddle-bow, bloodied and bedraggled beyond all recognition.

The horse's hooves raised up puffs of ash and dust, and its red eyes rolled wildly in its head.

The Lieutenant of Sauron looked about, the reins held lightly in one hand, his gaze contemptuous. "Is there anyone in this rout to treat with me?" he asked scornfully, deliberately echoing the words he had spoken before that other battle so many months ago now. "Or indeed with the wit to understand me?" His gaze drifted over Elrond, and despite himself the elf-lord shivered in his cloak to see the evil displayed therein.

"You have no power here, elf-wight. Run back to your masters, hide behind your women's skirts."

Elrond held his gaze steadily, and the Black Númenorean cursed and spat in the dust. "Or are you so ill-favoured behind your wiles that no slut will have you, be she ever so base?"

Elrohir started forward, a growl building low in his throat, but his father placed a restraining hand on his arm. "It is enough that we know, îon-nîn, and that she knows."

The Mouth of Sauron laughed, cruel and harsh, and the echoes rang in the rocks of the Udun, finding caves hidden even from the restless crawling of the orcs. "You have no power here," he repeated, "unless you accept the suzerainty of your true lord."

The Silmaril glowed warmly against the skin of Elrond's brow, and he thought briefly of the house on the clifftops above Sirion, and of the high meads above Rivendell, and of Celebrían, her face fading into a pale blur as the ship pulled out into the Gulf of Lune.

"I shall speak with no underling, no traitor to my kin, but only with the Lord of the Black Land himself."

The Man threw back his head in silent mirth. "My lord sets terms for you: that you will depart from this place, and come never back. That you will yield up all lands and all arms unto him. And foremost that you shall yield up to him this trinket, this Ring which is his by right, and by pledge of the Elves of Eregion."

"I accept no terms." To those watching, Elrond seemed to grow in stature. His illness-dulled hair glowed with dark light, and his eyes were points of starlight shining above Beleriand ere the Sun and the Moon. "For I come in the name of the Lords of the West, of whom your master is but an errant servant. I come in the name of the Lords of the West who have ever bought succour unto these lands, and with the hope of the Evening Star within me." He touched his brow, but the Silmaril was as yet veiled.

The skeletal mount of the Lieutenant of Barad-dûr reared and snorted. His rider tugged his erratic movements into a tight circle, and he pulled against the reins, bloody froth streaming from his mouth, his teeth bared.

"The Lords of the West?" The Lieutenant's voice rose into a shriek of terrible amusement. "What can they do for you now? They are as dust on the wind, their impotence revealed for what it is. There is only one lord now in all the world: the Lord of the Black Land. Your idols of earth and air can do naught for you now."

And with that, he cast the burden from his saddle-bow to the ground, and cantered back towards the Gate, his entourage tight behind him, the pennants bearing the red eye fluttering in the breeze.

There was silence.

And the burden stirred, a patch of darkness against the filthy pale sand. Emaciated limbs emerged from the ugly, broken huddle, as thin as sticks of kindling. Blackened, scorched fingers clawed at the ground, seeking purchase against the rough earth. Breath rattled in the silence, reverberating in the ears of those who watched and waited, unsure of what to do next. 

A hoarse, phlegm-ridden cough.

Blood seeping into the parched earth.

The man turned on his side, cloaked with his begrimed hair. A single eye turned towards the waiting army; in its blurred depths, a spark of blue flame awakened. Lips tried to frame a single word. Hands implored the very air for comprehension.

The blue flame grew stronger, expanding in concentric circles.

The mutilated, bloodied body writhed against the stones, caught with mortal agony, and with loss.

The blue fire flamed forth with familiar light, warm and regretful, and infinitely wise.

"Fools…" The voice was cracked and hoarse, scarce more than an aspiration. "My dear fools…" 

TBC

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*A direct quotation from _The Silmarillion._


	13. Into the Breach II

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Desolation

Chapter Thirteen

Thanks to **Lalaith** for betaing this, and cookies to all reviewers.

They stared. The silence was absolute. It seethed, almost a living thing, breathing, surrounding them, caressing them. It seemed to as if a dull golden light enveloped their thoughts, as seeping mist which prevented them from breathing, from even thinking to breathe.

They stood where they were, locked in an eternity of heartbeats.

A dry, dusty breeze eddied around their feet, raising puffs of dust, but there was a damp chill on its far edge which promised rain.

The sky crackled with power held long in check; cerulean lightning lanced earthwards.

The blue eyes closed slowly, their light dimmed.

It was Elrond who started forwards first, healer's instincts overriding those of a warrior. Somewhere in the distance he could hear the gleeful hum and murmur of the enemy, but it mattered not to him.

Elrohir was by his side as he knelt beside the comatose figure, his fingers fumbling with the pin fastening his cloak at the neck. He cursed softly the pin pricked his finger, and wrenched it free of the fabric with a hissing tear. Gently, the younger peredhel wrapped the cloak around the old man's shoulders, feeling the rigid shocks of terror and pain running through him.

He risked a glance sideways at his father and blanched. Elrond's eyes were tightly closed, the thick, dark lashes dusting his wan cheeks. And his hands shook with the force of his adamantine concentration. Even through the black cloth binding his brow tightly, his son could see the sudden flare of the Silmaril - and through his shirt, the now-sickened glow of the Rings. They sang to his blood as much as to his father's heart, and, his gentle hand holding the Istar still, he could not help but remember better times when the sun had shone yet upon this Middle-earth, and the power of the Three had seemed a thing benevolent indeed.

But Elrond had no such luxury. He knew his own strength was waning fast, his fëa slipping minute by minute into Mandos' care. And still he knelt by his old friend's side, his hands pressed to the bony shoulders, pouring his power, his will into him. Hoping against hope... Hoping against the red flare in the back of his mind, the dull, burning ache of Sauron's mastery which made the blood of Melian sear so, and his hapless peredhel flesh fall away before it...

And still he tried, for all the nameless dead before him, and for the fall of his father's people, and the doom of Men, and the fading of the Moriquendi. Still he tried, for of this earth he knew best its healing, the slow, silent ways of knitting tissues and the busy hum of blood...

Gandalf blinked, squirming as a rock knuckled him in the small of the back. Sudden pain flared through him from a hundred different injuries, and he sat bolt upright despite the desperate weakness lingering in his body.

Elrond reeled backwards, the peaceful mediation of healing fading fast from his mind. His flailing hands found gravel beneath their palms, and with some difficulty he steadied himself. Dizzying flashes of light bloomed before his eyes, and he saw, as if from a great distance, the wizard's ancient face looming before him. It was still graven with deep lines of pain and weakness, still marked with burns and terrible, livid weals inflicted by Sauron's vital hatred. And yet, strangely not. Strangely untouched, unsullied.

The nightingales sang over a far land, and the lady of healing slept amongst the blossoming flowers on the islet amidst the calm waters of Lórellin, shaded by bending willow-boughs.

"Welcome back, mellon-iaur," Elrond said dazedly, sitting back on his heels, his hands resting slackly on his thin knees. For once in his long life, he could not find the words. "I .. I did not look for this good fortune."

For a moment the Istar's eyes were as dark and deep as the wells between the stars, and then he nodded slowly. "Do not ... ask of me ... the future, friend, ... for I know it ... not, only what ... must be ... done ... ere ... the end." He laid his hand upon Elrond's arm, and the fingers were blazingly hot. "Ere the end ... what must be done..." He raised his gaze to the elf-lord's forehead, his eyes suddenly wide, and his grip grew slack.

With a bare gesture of his head, Thranduil summoned a pair of maidens forward.

"Take him to the rear." Elrond twined his hands about Andúril's hilt, staring at the runes engraved in the blade. "Keep him safe."

One of the maidens nodded, raising her short blade to her forehead in a salute. Her hair flashed silver in the torchlight; it was almost as if ... and then it was gone.

Gently, tenderly, they escorted the wizard away, and Elrond raised his head from his contemplations to eye the sneering host gathered before the Black Gate.

The hideous horse of the Lieutenant of Barad-dûr cantered in a restless circle, its eyes flashing madly, bright glimmers sparking from their depths. A mocking smile curved his lips and shone an unholy light in his eyes. "Even he knew, my lord fool. If you have any care for your shrivelled skin, turn back now and flee to the very shores of the sea, for we shall pursue you hence."

None deigned to answer; but as if they were of one mind they stalked forward in a broken line, weapons upraised, eyes hot with anger and vengeance and justice. To the very mouth of the Morannon they came in wave after wave, their banners flying with the colours of the free peoples, even of the Elves of Lindon and Imladris, rescued from the wreckage before the Gates. A bright display it was, and terrible and wonderful. It seemed to light the sky even as the flaming wonders above the ice bay of Forachel, and the army came on with a steadfast cheer echoing from thousands upon thousands of throats, rising to the very walls of the heavens.

The eagle swooped and soared, and his eyes were very bright.

At the head of the army strode Elrond and Elrohir, Thranduil and Dáin, Ulrang and Haldir of Lothlórien, their eyes like paired stars.

Before them, the Gates swung open and the Lieutenant and his company fell back, their faces caught in grotesque parodies of amusement. The trap had been baited, and the bait taken. They smiled for the joy that their master would cut this elf-child down, this gaunt elf-child ,this presumptuous elf-child, this elf-child with eyes like stars and thoughts that burnt, and such a terrible look upon his face, as if he knew secrets they did not, and rejoiced in them beyond their ken. But his secrets would be snuffed out, ripped out, to bleed into the dusty grey soil. They smiled, terrible laughter ripped from their throats.

But still the army came on, and on their faces, too, there were smiles, and the hope lay thick and fast in their eyes like the snow in the northern lands, and all the screeches of hateful scorn could not touch it.

A single, night-fletched arrow was notched, and a single elf fell, but the orc host was caught in confusion at the song upon his lips, the Narsilion, the Song of the Sun and the Moon, sung in such a strange place and at such a strange time. And others took up his call even as he died, throughout the front ranks of the Army of the West and the East, and those amongst the Enemy who could understand shrank back in fear, and those who could not drew back in confusion, their ears assailed by the tumbling chords of light.

A hand, slender and pale, drew a bow-string taut, the grey-green fletchings quivering with the tension of the string. The Man braced himself on his back leg, his long, slim fingers flexing around the carved wood of the bow, the inlaid runes, light against his fingertips. His balance shifted slightly, his eyes alert, his heart alight with vengeance. The arrow sang through the air, its flight swift and sure, and Faramir of Gondor bowed his head, as if in defeat, or desperate victory.

Battle was joined in earnest then, upon the great Plateau of Gorgoroth, as the two opposing armies clashed, the horde of orcs and Men of Darkness encircling the tiny force of Men and Dwarves and Elves completely.

The sky roiled above them, branches of bilious yellow lightning lighting up the tumbling clouds. Errant, willful winds gusted from side to side, catching the combatants off guard, sending them reeling off their balance, tumbling like leaves in an autumn breeze. The perpetual twilight was thick and dank, cloying the lungs and clinging to the mind. The flickering light had to it an odd greenish cast, sickly as mortal death. The din was almost unbearable – the ring of sword against shield, the hoarse clamour of the orc host, the desperate cries of the dying. Somewhere to the rear a child called out, caught by the belly upon a barbed spear, blood rippling from his lips in thick torrents, his dark hair clinging to his pale face.

The mountain rumbled in the distance, vomiting great scarlet gouts against the sky, like dragons' fire in the tales of old, like the Balrogs' whips against the Encircling Mountains as Gondolin died.

The heart in Elrond's chest skipped erratically, and it was only by that golden silver light that sparked in the back of his mind that his feet did not fumble on the uneven ground. But in his hands, his sword was an arc of gleaming light as sure as that radiance, burning from horizon to horizon as the orcs fell beneath the heat of his wrath, the chill of his grief.

A monstrous creature loomed before him, one eye hideously obscured by ridges of white scar tissue, the other gleaming with a baleful amber light amidst the webbing of faint scarlet lines. The dessicated skulls of some small beasts were bound about its neck, and it seemed to be crimson in hue from head to foot, such was the blood which coated it. It leered at him, taunting him, bearing fangs which did not deserve to be named teeth, so rank were they; swinging its scimitar from side to side it advanced, blood dripping from the notched blade. Instinctively he ducked, even as its blade bore down upon him in a foul welter of stinking metal, and lunged up under its guard. Andúril pierced its leathery hide at the point where it was weakest, just beneath one hulking arm.

Elrond gripped his failing left wrist with his right hand, a new strength borne of desperation fuelling him, and drove the blade upwards and inwards, wrenching through sinew and muscle, piercing one great lung, grating against the rigidity of bone. The blade, tempered by the finest smiths of Imladris, wrought with all the hopes of the Age, laboured against the resistance of the orc's chest, but at last it broke free, forced through the layers of flesh by the will bearing behind it. The point emerged through its back amidst a shower of dark blood, and the orc was dead before it hit the ground.

The elf-lord tasted blood in his mouth, the sweet richness of elven blood, tainted by sickness, not the foulness of orc gore, before he realised that he, too, was injured. Touching his shaking hand o his midriff, it came away red with his blood, hot and warm and sticky. He felt it seeping down his stomach; he felt his tunic clinging to his hips, to his thighs. The world swum before him, and he saw leaves silver and gold against the sky, and ancient, vaulted Halls where never mortal foot had trod. The Rings burnt very warm against his chest, their heat melding with his own blood, and the call was strong in his mind, very strong. That insidious voice, bittersweet, tinged with a longing which he would never know, he who had longed so much in his long years, he who had loved so very much. It called to him, sang to him with the melody he had heard from his mother's lips in that house upon the cliffs of Sirion, so very long ago. But it did not know the words that were spoken, and the notes fell hollow.

Elrond clutched at the rings, wrenching them away from the raw skin at his neck, feeling even the harsh, hot hair of Mordor as a relief, even as his body was convulsed with shivers.

To one side, he was aware of his younger son forging forwards, his eyes shining with a deadly fervour as he swung the ancient sword of his bloodline from side to side, cleaving a path through the orcs which stood in his way. It seemed that he scarcely noticed the blood streaming from a dozen small cuts, or the sweat which poured through his dark hair in the noxious atmosphere.

To the other, he was even more dimly aware of the Wood-king, his left arm hanging limply by his side, blood spilling from the ruined place where once his hand had been. His hair was slicked to his head by some foul substance, his teeth bared in a rictus of hatred. His blows fell thick and fast in the hue and cry of the uneven battle, and his voice was hoarse and raw with bellowed fury.

Neither swerved from their sole goal: to forge a broad swathe to where the Dark Lord stood upon a rise overlooking the battle, his hideous black arms shining with an unholy light. To protect with their force and their lives the wavering Elf who stood between them, his will resolute and the sinews of his body unravelling as darkness took him and he fell into death as a bright stone falls into a dark pool.

But Elrond found that he could not concentrate on them for long before his mind slipped away, riven by tendrils of unconsciousness, only to be torn from that dream of golden, obsidian darkness, of sweet voices upraised in an impossibly beautiful song, by a silver urgency for which he could no longer remember the name. And yet it drew him back, a sweetness in the back of his mind, like the first honey of the year.

All he knew for certain was the terrible roar of the battle, and the livid light before him. His shoulders ached with the constant arc of the blade. There seemed to be a fire within them, eating away at the labouring muscles, penetrating his flesh like a hundred thousand javelins tipped with deadly poison. And yet it meant little to him although he winced with every movement. It was all so very far away, beyond the veil of silver mist which had descended before his sight.

The ground rose and fell, and he knew, more from memory than from his failing sight, that here the Udun opened out into Mordor itself. To either side, the Ephel Duath and the Ered Lithui fell away in shoulder upon shoulder of mottled stone, even unto the horizons. Before them, incandescent against the luminous sky, stood Mount Oroduin, and, to its left, eastwards towards Rhun, Barad-dûr, its sinister battlements crenellated in shades of darkness.

And Sauron, his hands upraised unto the sky, as if beseeching the winds of Manwë Sûlimo which would not answer him. His ghastly face was a mask of terrible delight, and Narya, the Ring of Fire, burnt upon his finger beside the One, lit with an unclean scarlet light, as of putrefying flesh, or of some vile moss which grows in the deep places of the world, unseen by the eyes of the Sun and the Moon. His baleful gaze, bright beneath the disfigured flesh and ghastly armour, was ever fixed upon the peredhel labouring towards him, and his laughter rose to the winds. He stood upon a low rise in the land, the battle seething about him, ebbing and flowing in unholy patterns of slaughter, but he was untouched, rimed with a sickly light. Vile lightnings poured from the heavens to cascade upon his head.

He had more power now than Elrond had ever seen him grasp. Unable to look upon it anymore, such was the pain of the terrible light flickering into his eyes, he turned his gaze away, back to the battle, back to the orc lying dying at his feet, its gnarled fingers clawing at the air. He remembered the old legends of those first days of his people beside the Cuivienen, and of the making of the orcs, and between hatred and sorrow there was in his heart not even a hairsbreadth.

But the battle was too fierce, too easily lost, too grim for such thoughts. Time and again he swung his sword. Time and again adversaries fell beneath his blade. Time and again only some instinct saved him, rolling to the ground as an orc scimitar scythed through the space where only a moment before his head had been. Gouts of blood slicked his face, dripping in his eyes, nearly blinding him until a brief pause gave him let to wipe it away with the back of one shaking hand. His boots were fouled with a slick mixture of churned mud and entrails. Men and Elves and lay dying upon the ground amidst the twisted corpses of the orcs which they had hewed down. He knew that far too many of them fell for _his_ sake, so that the torrent might not fall upon him, so that the inevitable might be averted a moment longer.

A silver tug at him mind. Impatient. Commanding. A single word. _Hervenn._ He was Elrond Halfelven, and his song was not entirely of Arda, and nothing was inevitable. He smiled, despite it all.

Elrohir took a sword blow to the ruined stump of his arm, and howled above the fury of the battle, more in rage than in pain.

In the back of Elrond's mind, the silver thread winced, drawing back with an almost physical pain. The elf-lord stumbled sideways, crushing an orc in his haste. A father's haste. A mourner's haste.

"Ion-nîn…" He laid a hand upon Elrohir's left shoulder.

"'Tis nothing." Elrohir shoved him away. "We must fight." But there was tenderness in his eyes, and gratitude.

The battle closed in about them, fiercer than ever. They were separated from one another, and from Thranduil by the rip tide of battle as a new regiment of the Haradrim poured down from the stony heights in a solid wave which scarcely seemed to break upon the first rank of archers set against them.

And yet they beat them backwards, pace by pace, their boots slimed with the viscera of their comrades, their hearts weary and their sinews aching. For a while the sky to the West seemed to lighten above the Ephel Duath, but then the highest turret of Minas Morgul belched forth a yellow-green fire which lit up the sky and land as clear as day. Turning in an achingly slow circle, Elrond looked out across the plain of Mordor, out across the raised causeway which lead to the Morannon and all the world beyond. The battle seemed to stretch forever, he thought, even as he cut down a Southron who had crept up on him, presuming him unawares. To the distant horizons, Men and Orcs and Elves swayed backwards and forwards in an unseemly dance, bright metal flashing in the sudden light. A dim fog seemed to lie above the land, fading to the palest silver above the mountains.

His eyes betrayed him, and he looked westwards in the hope of some sign, but there was none only the ghastly flare from the Morgul-vale. And even that faded, cloaking the land of Mordor with its familiar darkness once more.

It was interminable.

Thranduil fell, a barbed arrow through his throat, the black fletchings protruding obscenely beneath his larynx. He collapsed to his knees, his outstretched hand kneading the air like new dough. Elrond stumbled to his side, tripping, falling. But the wood-king's pale eyes were wide with amazement, the pupils dilated. Sightless and dead. There was no time to mourn the passing of one with whom he had quarreled with this Age past in council chambers long since forgotten.

There was a hand beneath his elbow, human and youthful, the skin uncreased and unstained with the liver spots of age, a dark patina of grime worn into the pale skin.

He wrenched himself free, staggering to his feet, his sword at the ready.

The Steward of Gondor stepped backwards, his own blade, held away from his body. "My lord…"

"Nay. It is well that I can at least retain some grip upon the wariness of battle," Elrond cut him off.

At the Man's back, a sword sung, and there was the glitter of torchlight of chased mail and golden hair, holding off all comers. Brilliant grey eyes, and the face a mask of determination, hard and cold as forged steel.

Blood fanned across their faces, and the moment was broken.

Without a word more, Faramir took up the place which the Sindarin king had held. The seal-ring of the Ruling Stewards shone upon his finger, the onyx seeming almost to be lit from within as the scabrous light issuing forth from Oroduin and Barad-dûr gleamed in its depths. His movements were severe and precise, never missing a target, his attention always with the lord he sought to protect.

They fought onwards as if it would never end, until they knew no world which did not hold pain and blood and death. And still their blades rose and fell, and the light of Andúril went unquenched.

The rise in the land grew nearer; Sauron's massive figure darker against the sky.

A billow of dark smoke obscured the battlefield, as if arising from some monstrous fire. In the far distance, thunder rumbled, and rain began to fall in heavy pellets, cold and sweet.

The Steward was borne backwards, subsumed by a new torrent of orcs. His screams rang out over and over. He was lost to Elrond's sight, and of a sudden his cries were cut off in a gargling moan.

The elf-lord felt the fury boiling within him. Too many had died. With a growl he flung himself forwards. A horse flailed about before him, tossing hither and thither in the mire, its harness inextricably tangled about its dead rider.

Sauron was so close.

The Nazgûl screeched overhead, lordless now, but still a terror beyond the reckoning of mortal men. To Elrond, battling relentlessly forwards, it seemed that the wingtips of their fell steeds almost brushed his hair. A thick, stinking wind swirled around him, raising eddies of dancing dust, casting sand in his eyes. The Ringwraiths screeched long and loud, and the men beneath cried out, clapping their hands to their ears in a fruitless attempt to block out the hideous wailing. Their wings beat the air, louder by far than the distant thunder. The Black Breath rippled over them, an invisible tide darker than the darkest night. Even the most doughty quailed, their hearts shrinking within their breasts. The world seemed to close in. Weapons dipped and swayed, sinews robbed of their strength.

Sauron was closer yet, just beyond reach, just beyond hope, as the Nazgûl wheeled and circled again, drawing intricate patterns in the sky. The precious wedge of clear space about the elf-lord contracted as the Men of Rhûn and Rohan to either side fell back, their hands still in sudden fear.

There was a touch on his shoulder. He spun, and only nearly decapitated the warrior who stood there, breathing hard from the fray. Her hair was streaked and matted with blood, her face chalky from new grief. To her left stood the young prince of Dol Amroth. He had been weeping.

Between them they held Gandalf, his body sagging almost to the ground. The wizard shivered convulsively, his chin drooping to his chest.

"What…?" Elrond started, drawing back against the meagre shelter of the causeway wall which stood high above them. "Why were…"

"I … commanded it, mellon-iaur," Gandalf wheezed. "I must…"

"You must what?"

"The Road goes ever on and on, my friend." The colour was leeching from his face, but a great light grew in his eyes, mighty and terrible and wonderful. "I hope … at the end … the Lords of the West … shall … forgive … me … if I … overstep … my bounds in … this."

"No." Elrond shook his head as panic rose within him, feeling almost as if he was an elfling again. "No…"

"Yes." The Maia struggled to his feet, stumbling free of those who had aided him thus far. He clutched the ragged cloak to his throat, and yet he seemed a king unveiled, standing there in the midst of the raging battle, with an elf-lord of high lineage kneeling at his feet, his dark cloak cast over his brow. "Farewell, until we meet once more beyond the Western Seas, or the world is broken and remade." His voice had gained in strength, with the rich, deep timbre of old.

The very earth seemed to sing. A scattering of pebble dislodged themselves and ran in rivulets down into the gully in which they stood. It felt to Elrond, struggling to look up, as if he had turned his face towards a blazing fire in some distant hearth, or to the sun on a bright day in summer when the sky held no clouds. Peering sideways through his streaming eyes, he saw the stark terror in the faces of Éowyn and Amrothos. But he could not look upon the wizard himself, for he burnt like a beacon, like the sun in splendour.

In the distance, the thunder stopped and the rain pattered to a halt on the sodden earth.

The light grew brighter yet, and a dim wailing began, torn from a hundred thousand ghastly throats. All around them, Sauron's armies recoiled, falling back, fighting amongst themselves in their haste to get way, stabbing and trampling each other as they went. The grotesque, ruined masks which were the faces of the orcs contorted into feral snarls of hatred; the Haradrim and Easterlings who fought under the banner of the Dark Lord were little better. The din rose inexorably, the clamour of a hundred thousand different voices calling out at once in fear and in pain. The stench of fear hung thick over the battlefield.

The screams of the dead and dying mingled with the general uproar as a cavalry regiment stampeded, the grim horses terrified by the light, their eyes rolling maniacally in their sockets, spittle burbling between their bared teeth.

The light grew brighter yet, the brilliance seeming to feed upon itself.

In the skies above them, the Nazgul and their steeds added their cries to those of their comrades below, like the scraping of monstrous fingernails across the walls of the world itself. The winged beasts craned their sinuous necks against the rising wind, their clawed feet tearing at the air, clutching at the earth. The eight surviving Riders rocked from side to side, shaken by paroxyms of mortal terror. One beast, maddened in its fear and disorientated by the wild flailings of the Nazgûl at its back, careered uncontrollably towards the ground, one leathery black wing carving a long trench in the muddy soil, throwing orcs and Men high into the air amidst the burbling of their death screams.

Thrown forward onto his face by the cataclysm unfolding around him, Elrond rolled cautiously onto one side, and peered up through his lashes, blinking against the bright light and the tears streaming from his eyes. The Rings at his breast glowed dully, but the radiance set about the wizard was more brilliant by far, a white shot through with many colours, expanding in a dome as far as the eye could see. But in the middle of all this, the old man trembled, wavering on his feet, his arms outstretched for balance.

Far away, through the pain lancing through his weakened arms, and the brightness of the field, a league or more distant, Elrond could see Dáin of the Lonely Mountain kneeling in wonder, a company of his sturdiest warriors about him, their faces bloodless in awe beneath their beards even from this distance.

And beyond the sphere of absolute calm that was the vicinity of the dying Maia, slowly but surely the host of Orcs and evil Men retreated in abject confusion, their limbs quivering with hatred and terror. They quailed as the light grew brighter yet, whimpering as they tore and bit at one another to get free of it.

As if it had been some sign, this galvanised the beleaguered force at last, adding new strength to their tiring limbs, and new purpose to their faltering hopes. The dwarves at Dáin's side scrambled to their feet, snatching up their axes, storming forward against the retreating line, the twin blades singing through the air. Their guttural howls were taken up by others in their kin in other parts of the field, and now the Men joined them in sundry voices, and now the Elves of Mirkwood, kingless and homeless, but as terrible in their vengeance as Elu Thingol had been of old.

And before their deadly blades the orcs milled in incomprehension, scarcely even raising their own weapons to defend themselves, such was their bafflement at the catastrophe which had befallen them. They moaned piteously in their inhuman voices, shielding their eyes against the light, even as the Nazgul and their mounts struggled and writhed in the skies above.

The tiny force which had set itself against all the might of Mordor, beyond hope and beyond darkness, showed no mercy. For none would be shown unto them and for the first time since that dreadful night many months distant now, they caught in the darkness a dim flickering of a chance of hope, and a fierce, bright joy shone in their hearts.

Before them, what little resistance remained in the hearts of the orcs melted away as mist on a meadow in the morning of the world. And Elrond saw the corridor of which he had so lately despaired, opened again to him, clear to the base of the hillock on which Sauron stood arrayed in all his dread force.

Wincing at every movement, the peredhel levered himself upright, bracing himself on Andúril to get a foot beneath him. He stood still for a moment, breathless from the exertion.

Behind him, the light failed and died. The ancient wizard collapsed to the ground. Wheeling, Elrond saw that his eyes were open and sightless, staring at the fathomless depths of the sky, and his lips flecked with dark crimson blood.

But there was no time now, no time to mourn, no time for tears lest they should be spilt in vain. As yet, the way remained clear, as yet there was still a chance, for the host of the Enemy had not rallied, fearing some new Assault of light.

"The day has come!" Elrond cried again and again in a great voice, carrying above the sounds of the battle and of the harsh wind which whipped eddies of tiny pebbles into the air and lent an unnatural semblance of life to the dead littered across Gorgoroth, stirring their hair and twitching at their fingertips. He staggered forwards, limping now, almost falling. The blood pounded in his ears as he slipped and clambered his way up the shallow slope, feeling each breath as a stab of pain beneath his heart. And the taste of this victory was bitter on his tongue, bitter indeed. "Day has come!"

There was a soft chuckle, mocking and cruel. "Wise in all lore is Master Elrond?"

The elf-lord straightened, only half a handful of yards distant from the Dark Lord, every nerve alive with tension.

"Hast thou come to offer thy allegiance unto me? For mine is the only day that shall ever come." The dark armour which covered Sauron from head to foot clanked as he moved, the plates chiming against one another.

"My fathers stood against thy master, and he was cast down, and his dominion utterly destroyed upon the face of this earth. My wisdom is my own, and my allegiance belongs to the Lords of the West."

"Not so great then is thy wisdom, nor so worth the tales by which it is reckoned. Thou wouldst have been wise indeed to have joined with me long ago, when I offered it. For be thou certain that I shall not offer it now, nor ever, even shouldst thou plead with thy very life."

Elrond felt the faint sheen of sweat on his brow, the stiffness of the cloth across his shoulders where his own blood was drying against his skin. He fought with the sense of blank terror which the renegade Maia inspired in all, the knowledge that here was one who had been before the world began, and would still be here when the ash and dust of the Dagor Dagorath settled into stillness.

__

You are the scion of the lines of kings, and the blood of Melian flows yet in your veins, Celebrían said quietly in the back of his mind, and he could see her long, slender fingers threading nervously through her silver hair, and the concern in her face.

He found that he was curiously unafraid. "We differ in our knowledge of wisdom, thou and I." He raised his head and looked proudly into the horrific pits which were the Dark Lord's eyes. "For thy sight is clouded, and thy wisdom less than the wind."

"Wilt thou then deny me what is mine by right? Give up these Rings, even as your wizard friend gave up his when he was found and brought unto my tower. For he was then broken in body, but thy death may yet be swift."

He smiled softly, ruefully. "Long years we knew peace, and we shall not so easily be cowed by pain or death, even as Beren Erchamion went undaunted, and as Finrod Felagund, by whose valour he was saved, and escaped even from you, Sauron, Lord of nothing."

The Maia's face was terrible to behold in its wrath, the teeth bared in a rictus, the hideous skin drawn into tight lines over the misshapen bones. "For that deed alone, thy death shall not be merciful, for thou shalt cry out unto thy lords, and declaim thy low birth a calamity beyond all telling, and recant thy loves, and bemoan thy breath." Sauron's lips curled in an awful parody of a smile, and Elrond felt a chill course down his spine. "Yea, and even thy memory shall be sundered, and all thy recollection of the elf-witch's brat torn asunder, and thou shalt die even as the beasts which crawl beneath her feet."

Elrond toyed with the pommel of the great sword he still held, bound to his left hand with stout cloth. The metal was warm beneath his grip, the ancient patterns familiar and comforting. "Nay. I think it shall not be so, for by this blade was the Ring sundered from you, and you fear it yet."

Indeed, there was a flicker of something akin to fear in Sauron's eyes, only to be obliterated by a torrent of blind rage which carried all before it. Without warning, he bore down on the Elf before him, lashing his great mace from side to side. The ground sizzled and smoked where his feet passed, and a sickening smell of burning wafted through the air. For a long moment, it mingled in Elrond's memory with the putrefying stench of charred flesh as Gil-galad had fallen beneath those heavy feet, the last king of the Noldor in Middle-earth. But the next moment, the great mace came crashing down, and there was no time for further thought.

He threw himself to the ground and rolled desperately sideways, but still it caught a numbing blow to his left arm, and it was only by virtue of the bindings that he kept his grip on Andúril. Dust filled his nostrils choking him, and he coughed, crying out involuntarily as the paroxyms shook his frame. He scrabbled in the dirt, bloodying his knuckles in his haste, and circled the Dark Lord warily.

Almost lazily, Sauron struck again, and he dodged, his reflexes buying him some time to recover his breath.

It had to be soon, now. His hands trembled at the thought.

Again, a blow was aimed at him, a vicious swipe at his kneecaps, and again he evaded it. As he jumped sideways, he closed with the Dark Lord, and lashed out with Andúril, cutting through the heavy armour and drawing a bloody line across the foul flesh beneath. It leaked a yellow pus which soured the air in his lungs.

Sauron snarled in rage, but Elrond knew more than to think he had done his adversary some serious wound.

Back and forth they went, thrust and parry, hither and thither across the broken land, sparring through thickets of the many-thorned brambles. Blood dripped almost incessantly into Elrond's eyes now, and he could feel his heart weakening with each drop, his pulse slowing. His vision swam, and he staggered heavily, weaving on the spot, retreating step by step in a desperate effort to put some space between him and his pursuer. His head was boiling underneath the layers of cloth, but he could barely feel his hands, so numb from cold as they were. His reflexes were failing; exhaustion crept in. He spun, dragging a hand across his eyes to smear away the blood.

"Hast thou wearied already of thy dance?' Sauron mocked him, swinging the mace backwards and forwards in an almost lazy current of sinuous motion. "Wilt thou then welcome thy death?"

"Not yet," Elrond whispered, and pushed the hood back from his head. Such was the trembling of his hand that he fumbled with the knot securing the band of silk about his brow. His fingers slipped clammily; he was only too aware that at any moment, Sauron's amusement would end, and the mace would come crashing down.

The world seemed suddenly a great weight bearing down upon him, the sky leaden, the earth rising up to crush him with its pleas. He struggled frantically, cursing the malaise in his fingers. Somewhere to his left, he heard Sauron's mirthless laughter.

He tugged again, and the knot came free. The band of silk fluttered out behind him, drifting away high above Mordor. The winds shifted, and seemed suddenly to blow from the West, over the Ephel Duath from Ethir Anduin and the sea. Far off, the solitary eagle called out in his hunting, and the world fell silent. Even the battle seemed to fade away, and the sea breeze smelt of elanor and niphredil in a far green land beneath a swift sunrise.

Elrond gasped for breath, shocked anew by the power of this thing, the beauty untouched even in this dark place.

He heard a rasp, low and guttural, and realised with a start that it was Sauron. The fallen Maia was gazing upon the holy jewel with undisguised longing - greed - terrible lust to possess. There was something in his eyes which the elf-lord could not even begin to describe, even as he instinctively shrank back from the hatred it kindled.

"It cannot be..." Sauron hissed, advancing on the peredhel standing tall and proud before him. His eyes flashed with malice. "It cannot be."

Elrond grappled for Andúril's hilt, holding the sword out before him in both hands. He could scarcely stand. Blood trickled from the base of his skull, and he appeared almost a shade already, fëa without hröa. And yet he seemed an image of Eärendil painted in some great hall of lords and kings, the Silmaril shining brightly upon his brow, his face grave and proud.

"The power of the Silmarils, wrought by the hands of Fëanor from the light of the Trees of Yavanna, is woken in this world to be thy ruin, Sauron, Nameless and Forgotten."

"It shall not be so. This trinket has no power over me."

Elrond's legs failed under him, and he crumpled to the ground in a heap of emaciated limbs. In that instant, Sauron was upon him, one terrible, burning hand pining him to the earth by the hem of his cloak as the other reached for the neck of his tunic, grabbing desperately at the chain which hung there, yanking its burden free, the Rings tumbling end of end, gold glinting brightly, sapphire and adamant flashing...

But he hesitated, torn by his own greed, his lust to possess, by the ancient humiliation, and the pain of the fall of his master. He wavered above the fainting peredhel, his massive fingers clenching and relaxing reflexively. In a heartbeat, he saw an Age past, saw triumph and disaster, saw himself crowned with the Silmaril as his master had been, and all reason fled.

He snatched the Silmaril up, tearing the bindings free, holding the jewel up in both hands, the thin cords trailing like a nest of adders.

He howled with triumph.

And with pain. For the light of the Silmaril, hallowed by the Valar, burnt him, searing into his dreadful flesh. He screamed, a high, terrible, primeval scream, clutching the Silmaril to himself even as the pain increased fourfold.

In his agony and his triumph, he did not notice that he trampled Nenya and Vilya into the earth.

Smoke poured from his wounded palms, and he screamed again and again.

With the last of his energy, Elrond dragged himself to his feet. Blood and sweat poured indistinguishably down his back, and he could taste bile in his mouth. But Sauron's gaze, deranged with pain, did not fall upon him, half-crawling across the earth before him.

Droplets of stinking blood dripped from his hands, sizzling as they touched the ground, and his eyes remained locked on something unseen to all but him, hidden deep in the brilliant facets of Maedhros' Silmaril.

In the end, the work of an Age was over in a heartbeat. Just as it had three thousand long years before, Andúril sliced through flesh and bone, muscle and tendon as if it was naught but air.

The mutilated, bleeding hand hit a protruding rock with a heavy thud. The runes inscribed in the gold band glowed hotly and Mount Doom flared red against the horizon.

Although great was his power, greater than it had ever been, the terrible pain of his burning distracted the fell Maia, and the dread sinews which knit his being together unravelled into the wind, dust blowing where once a figure had stood in gleaming armour.

The sword fell from the Elf's hands, the bindings unravelling with careless grace.

Elrond was dimly aware of kneeling to take the Silmaril between his hands, brushing away the thick, glutinous blood, before his head hit the gravel.

Footsteps crunched towards him, and he fumbled for the Ring, clasping the slender gold band tightly, not knowing whether friend or foe approached.

"Ada?" Elrohir knelt by his side, tenderly smoothing back an errant lock of dark hair. "Ada?"

"Soon..." Elrond hunched his knees up to his chest. "We must ... soon ... or his strength will recover and be too great..."

"Yes, we must.'

And Elrond drifted away into a timeless time, and knew no more.

TBC


	14. Intimations of Sorrow

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Desolation

Chapter Fourteen

Thanks to **Isis** for beta-ing this, and to everyone who reviewed.

So here it is: the last chapter. Only the epilogue to go now.

He knew her name before he remembered his own, knew it as he knew the hard ground beneath him, and the restless pain in his side. He could almost hear her voice, feel the silken texture of her skin beneath his fingertips, count every last freckle and flaw. He inhaled deeply, ignoring the raw spears stabbing his chest and throat, trying desperately to recall her inimitable scent, honey and soap, and sweet spices. But there was nothing, only the acrid tang of scorched rock, and the rankness of death.

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Awake, meleth-nín. You cannot sleep; you must not.

He smiled drowsily at her words, feeling the dried blood cracking with the movement, not entirely sure as to why he bled.

_I… shall … stay with you … I think… _

Nay. She was frantic; he could hear it in her voice and wondered at it, but the sinuous coils of reason slipped from him before he could grasp them. _Go; you must not stay._ She took a step backwards, fading into the formless grey shadows, lost to him, and he could hear the Sea, the chuckling of the gulls, the rush and hiss of the tide.

The stars whirled about him, the pallid hue of silver, and bright vermilion fire, a dance his eyes could not trace, his failing mind could not hope to encompass. One flickered before his vision, brighter by far than the others, a searing beacon of saffron flame, and he reached for it…

The air seared his lungs, thick and heavy and noxious, and he could taste the blood in his mouth, feel the shreds of his tunic clinging to him, sticky with gore. There was a warmth against his chest, even through his armour, and with dawning consciousness, he remembered the Silmaril, its sharp planes and brilliant light. But his hand burnt with pain, and he could smell the charred flesh of the palm, feel the dull pressure of the Ring against the seeping blisters it had raised there.

He retched heavily, his wits tumbling over themselves. Already, he could feel the chill, gold promise growing in the back of his mind. Everything he had ever desired, everything he had ever wished for, worked for, dreamed of, made truth, here, in Endor, beneath the skies he loved. Mightier than any king, wiser than any lord…

Elrond groaned, forcing his eyes open with an effort of will. Nails dug grooves in his abused shoulders, sharp with urgent emotion, and a flask was held to his lips, the brackish water trickling down his chin in a steady stream. He spluttered weakly, and the hands pinioning him gentled somewhat, holding the lank fall of hair back from his face.

He opened his eyes to a cool, grey mist, featureless and formless save for drifting shadow-shapes. Somewhere close at hand, he could hear someone weeping, and wondered what new sorrow this was. He reached out blindly through the swirling mists, seeking more through instinct than through thought for the source of the terrible, soughing noise, no louder than a heartbeat. His fingers found a face bent near to his own, wet with tears, and slick with new scars. He traced the familiar contours of his son's face, the tilt of the chin inherited from his mother, the features so alike and yet so unlike his own.

"El…" he began, and stopped abruptly, surprised to hear his voice reduced to such a croaking monstrosity. Elrohir hushed him, and, as if in counterpoint, the voices around him rose in a cacophonous babble. One, he heard above all else; sibilant, and yet oddly sweet, as the hurrying tide on shingle. _All that is done may be undone; no scars last forever, no wounds are so deep they cannot be healed. _The voice entranced him, as liquid gold as that of his foster father, for all that _he_ had been accounted the greatest minstrel of the Noldor in times gone by. It seemed to soothe him, to curl round him in shining tendrils.

But something deep within him recoiled from its insidious beauty; he realised that this voice he did not hear with the ears of his body, but only with those of his mind. He shuddered, and his sight grew more lucid. Now, he could see a dark shape looming over him, and, with difficulty, squinting against the shadows, he could make out his son's face. The hands that had held him relented, and another face came into view, distorted by its odd angle.

"Thank all the gods." Ulrang wiped a trickle of blood from his cheek with the trailing corner of his cloak. "I am glad to see you awake, my friend." But, all unwitting, his gaze wandered to the elf-lord's withered right hand which was so tightly clenched about the Ring, and a flicker of something old and merciless showed in his eyes. Elrond felt a surge of sullen, protective rage course through him. He let it take him, its strength fuelling his own. With a gasp at the agony of movement, he forced himself upright. His head spun, and the chanting of that sweet, sinuous voice came closer in the darkness of his mind.

He clutched at the Silmaril, but it slithered to the ground, falling into the dust. Panic, unreasoning and unknowing, rose within him, and he reached for it, for the only comfort that would keep the voice from him.

A warm hand closed over his as Elrohir placed the holy jewel in his seeking palm.

"Thank you." He struggled to prop himself upright with his left arm, and turned to examine his right hand. The Ring glinted up at him, such a simple thing, a single band of bright yellow gold. And for all the crimson malice of the flowing script, he could not help wondering that such a thing could indeed be evil. He tucked the Silmaril into the crook of his elbow, and reached out with one forefinger to stroke the delicate, elegant lines of this thing, this wonder of power. Even in the darkness, it seemed to glow with a warm golden light that spoke of summer, and the springtime in distant lands.

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There are no wounds so deep they cannot be healed, even here, on these forsaken shores.

Gondolin of ancient memory … Menegroth and Nargothrond, the havens at the mouths of Sirion, and the fair towers of Lindon … Minas Anor and Minas Ithil… _These are the wonders and the glories of times gone by,_ it whispered. _And yet there are more wonders yet to come in this world, and only you, the child of Kings, and no king yourself, can truly forge them from this earth, for yours is the heart which would bring them forth without greed or malice. Your forefathers aided in the wounding of this land, in the battles that made desert from forest. But you can heal all those hearts, dear child. You were born for this, Elrond Peredhil, to be the shadows' bane, and return green life unto the ruined lands. Do you dare to take up this burden, this destiny? Will you be that which you are? Will you take up this crown?_

A hand grasped his arm, and without thinking, he lashed out.

There was a cry of dismay in the back of his mind, this voice imbued with true sweetness, and that note of pain was all too familiar from that terrible year so long ago.

He blinked, startled back to awareness, shocked to find that he stood upright on the uneven ground. And at his feet lay his son, his hand clutched to his cheek in the reflexive horror of a wounded youngling. His eyes were fixed on his father, wide with astonishment, and an ugly red blotch was blooming across his cheek.

"Aiii… Elbereth … what have I done? What have I done?" Elrond went down on his knees beside his son.

"It matters not." Elrohir struggled upright, but Elrond could still see the unconscious look of betrayal in the wide grey eyes, almost as much of a condemnation as the mark on his cheek.

"Nay … It matters all the world." He bowed his head. "I had not thought it would be so easy to fall."

"'Twas not you who struck the blow, although 'twas your hand which delivered it." The younger Elf smiled wryly.

Elrond shuddered. "I am too weak for this loathsome thing, and I fear it all the more for that."

"Then let us be rid of it, for once and for all." Elrohir tucked his sole remaining arm around his father's shoulders, and hauled them both to their feet.

"Can you forgive me, ion-nín?" He touched his fingers to his son's cheek.

"Nay, I cannot, for I never blamed you, nor ever will."

Elrond nodded, and smiled wearily. "Let us be rid of this curse." He cradled the Ring in a scrap of fabric torn from his cloak, wrapping it securely, and together they began to limp towards the mountain that loomed against the grim sky.

Their journey to the great chamber carved within the very bulk of Mount Orodruin was to be long and hard. The harsh, stony ground beneath their feet grew gradually warmer and warmer, until they could smell the soles of their boots singing beneath the heat. Their progress was laggard, crippled by the pain of every step, every in-drawn breath. And yet, stumbling, halting, they went onwards, defying each agonised eternity, and slowly, so slowly, they mounted the broad slopes of the mountain, following the ancient staircase cut into the rock by the hands of the dark servants and the slaves of Mordor. Gradually, the din of battle faded behind, and, were it not, for the fiery mountain, the air might have grown somewhat clearer.

Elrohir was startled from his reverie by a sudden snort of laughter from his father. "What?" He turned a quizzical eye upon the Elf who appeared to be convulsed with laughter. Amusement had given his face some semblance of its lively mobility of old, and a spark danced in the shrouded grey of his eyes.

"'Tis naught… merely that I had remembered Maglor remarking that I was too cautious ever to be caught by death. 'Tis amusing to see the wisdom of one's elders fail, for it seems that I have cast all caution to the winds."

"And here you are, in the very lands of the Enemy, with his most deadly weapon by your side, and still you laugh," the younger Elf said sourly. "Yes, indeed, you have set aside all caution." He grinned broadly, but there were tears in his eyes.

Elrond stiffened, his lips pressed together as he listened intently. "Someone comes."

There it was again; the skitter of falling pebbles, the soft, rhythmic tread of three sets of shod feet on the uneven, mired ground. Elrohir drew his sword, and thrust his father behind him. "Go, Adar."

But, before he could take a score of steps, the intruders were upon them.

"What did you think, leaving like that, young one?" Ulrang scowled. "To wander off like that…"

"There is no telling what will happen once the Ring is gone. I would not then put more lives in danger than I must." Elrond sighed, bracing himself against a rock to remain upright.

"And thus you put yours at risk now, haring off into Mordor with none but a one-armed Elf by your side?" The voice was caustic, but unmistakable; the White Lady of Rohan had survived the battle that had taken the lives of so many others. Her chased mail was in tatters, hanging limply from her shoulders; her shield and helm were gone, and yet she seemed almost without wound, her golden hair flowing free down her back. And on one of her shoulders leant the Steward of Gondor, breathing heavily, bloodied in a dozen places, but utterly and undeniably alive.

Elrond shook himself, aware that he was staring. Elrohir was not as restrained. "I thought you were dead."

The Man chuckled weakly. "So did I, in truth." His expression sobered. "My cousin saved my life, and gave his own in its place, all unknown amidst the hue and cry. The line of the swan-princes of Dol Amroth has ended this day."

Éowyn's hand tightened on his arm, and he glanced at her with gratitude in his eyes. "There is naught you could have done."

He shook his head as if to deny it, and said no more. And so, together, the strange party began to move forward again, climbing the path step by step. As they reached a turn in the track, Elrond chanced to look out upon the plains of Gorgoroth. What he saw there brought a ghost of a smile to his lips. The forces of Mordor were in full flight, retreating by the hundred score deep into the wilds of the Black Land, crowding every path, trampling every bramble patch in their haste. And behind them, the ragged army of Elves and Men and Dwarves stood in victory but for a moment, before they, too began to fall back, making in steady order for the Black Gate.

"Aye." Ulrang had come up behind him with but the faintest of footsteps. "We shall not have to fear for their lives in this task."

Elrond nodded his thanks, and took the proffered arm. "Where will you go once this is done?"

The Easterling gave him a crooked smile. "I know not, for my heart tells me that I can never return to the lands of my birth. We are too far sundered now, they and I, and my son can rule in my stead." He shook his head. "Nay, you have been the breaking of me, Master Elf, with your accursed friendship."

Elrond smiled, and made as if to speak, but Ulrang waved him back. "Mayhap I shall go to die beneath the wide skies of the lands of my fathers, but in the times soon to come I believe I shall be as content as I am able beneath this westering sun. Yon Steward is a most interesting Man, and many lands lie shall lie beneath his rule ere your grandson takes up his rightful crown. They will need a protector, and I count myself as quick with a sword as the Steward is with words."

"I can think of none better, my friend…" he broke off suddenly. It had come upon them all unawares, the massive door of stone wrought into the mountainside. Great was the dread that hung about it, and they drew back even as they purposed to go onwards. For a long moment, they were silent, and then Elrond laughed as of old, as of the days before the passes of the Misty Mountains grew cruel once more. Sweet it seemed, an odd noise here in this foul place, a gilded sorrow beyond all reckoning. "We have come through death, and through darkness, and we shall not be here confounded by mere stone, when the long years run full circle within the beating of our hearts." And, so saying, he went onwards, a tall, stooping figure against the glare from the mountain.

Rank, sulphurous fumes filled the air, and the heat was nigh on unbearable. Billowing smoke clouded their sight and stung their eyes, and still they did not falter, until at last they came out upon the ledge that looked down upon the Crack of Doom. With halting strides, Elrond fumbled his way to the very brink of that echoing chasm. Thick pain seemed to clog his thoughts; he could scarce breathe for its talons sunk deep within him. All was chaos and confusion, within as without… He wished simply to lay his head upon the earth and dream no more.

A beam of light, as clear and silver as the starlight upon the shores of the ancient West, stung him with glorious sight and purpose, and he could see once more.

__

I thank thee, meleth-nín, he whispered in the silence of his mind.

Gingerly, he unwrapped the scrap of cloth which enfolded the Ring of Power. In this place, it seemed to shine more brightly yet, as if the fires of its forging were calling to it. His hand ached to take it up, to wield the power which had been the cause of so much harm, to wield it at the behest of all that was good, to heal the world which was no cruelly wounded. It called out to him in the voices of blood unjustly spilt, with the names of those who had died in vain, and knew no grave nor resting place. It sang to the skills he had honed over such long years, to mend what was broken, to balm what was raw in the Marred World.

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Arda Sahta: imperfect, flawed; and yet could that flaw not be mended, if one had the power to bend to that deed, the heart to carry it to its fulfillment?

_There need be neither suffering nor death upon the face of the world, dear one… _

And he saw visions of what might be, of great cities, and greens lands beneath a broad sky, of the stars undimmed by night, and the sun by day. Of Rivendell as it once had been, but made stronger and fairer yet. His heart swelled with the thought, little born of pride, but of glory in the World that Is…

He turned slowly, and saw those who had accompanied him: Elrohir and Ulrang, Éowyn and Faramir, their faces grim, their eyes burning in the fetid darkness. Their hair hung in sweat-soaked strands about their brows; their frames were tense with waiting. Of a sudden, he was the true foulness of this place, this putrid warren dug into the bowels of the earth, so far from the sky and sea. He hated it, in that instant, and all the memories of darkness that lingered here from so long ago.

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"This I will have as weregild for my father, and my brother."

It seemed to him that it would be a thing doubly unfair to consign the beauty of the Ring to a fiery end here in this cavern where such darkness lingered, when it might be an instrument of such light in the world without.

It spoke to him again, in that same gilded voice, as wonderful and high to the ear, as the gold itself was to look upon. _All that is done may be undone; no scars last forever, no wounds are so deep they cannot be healed._

And in that moment, he knew its true nature, even as he had never known it before, and his heart was turned from it in the utmost depths of hatred.

__

There are no wounds so deep they cannot be healed, it urged him again. _This you know._

Then, he remembered the torments of his beloved Celebrían, those pains which had so stolen her joy in Middle-earth, remembered her fair face creased with pain, and her slender frame wracked with sorrow. He remembered how he had put forth all his strength, and sought with all his might for a cure, and found none that could save her from the fading he saw in her eyes. He remembered the white flicker of the sails in the Gulf of Lune, the swirl of her cloak, and the glint of the ring upon her finger. Without pride, he knew the fortitude of his powers, and still there were some wounds he could not heal.

"You lie." He did not realise he had spoken aloud, until he saw the fear and puzzlement on his companions' faces. "You lie, as ever was your wont. There is no healing within you, and even were that not so, there _are _some wounds too deep to heal. I have suffered, and been wounded to the heart, and this I declare with all my will."

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Save me, protect me; I can show you…

"No."

And he stretched his arm out over the abyss, the right arm where all the ills of Sauron's reign were writ so clearly. He opened his palm, finger after finger uncurling, and let the Ring fall. It plummeted into the Crack of Doom as if unnaturally heavy, and three drops of blood fell with it from the elf-lord's wounded palm; one for each Age of the Sun in Middle-earth, one for each of the Elven Rings which would now fail and fade. Blood and gold mingled as they fell, and then, far, far, below, beyond the realms of sight, a great rumbling began. The mountain itself shook; the great lintel-stone of Sammath Naur trembled in its place. Billowing sheets of flame arose from the depths of the earth, and the chamber was in a single instant riven by great cracks from floor to ceiling.

Elrond fell to his knees, retching and shaking with the relief of the task accomplished. He gave himself up to the brightness growing in the back of his mind…

And someone grabbed him roughly under the arms, hauling him back from the brink. His legs dragged along the floor; the laces of one boot caught on an outcrop of rock, and it was wrenched rudely off.

They were outside, beneath a sky seething with fire, and alive with fragments of flying stone. The rumbling grew to a roar, and the roar to a wall of sound without beginning or end. The peak of the mountain above them belched forth molten rock. Volcanic bombs hurtled through the air, smashing into the plain below. Great tongues of lava licked the land. The ground heaved beneath them.

His vision failed him, as they staggered upon the fickle earth. In brief, fading glimpses, he saw Barad-dûr topple and crumble in upon itself.

Trembling hands held him upright, even as the fires withered him.

They collapsed to the bare rock; he could feel the lava flowing around their desperate sanctuary. A hand sought his, and he grasped it tightly, bereft of all words. Elrohir tucked his head into his father's shoulder, as he had done, so long ago, an elfling baffled by the terrors of the night. They lay where they were, their task done, awaiting the end.

A cool wind washed over them; somewhere, beyond the seething noise of Mount Doom, Elrond thought he heard the gusts of beating wings. And then thick, wickedly curved talons grasped him in a tender hold. Elrohir cried out in wonder as they were drawn apart, and then he could hear nothing above the soughing sounds of the air.

Elrohir blinked in awe as the great eagle which had borne him settled noiselessly to the ground, its brethren beside it. Gwaihir and Landroval, they were, mighty descendants of mightiest Thorondor of old, and two others besides. Their golden raptors' eyes gleamed with great wisdom. They shuffled their wings, laying the four companions down upon the scoured earth of what had once been a great, green field bordered by noble trees.

"This place is called the Field of Cormallen," Gwaihir the Windlord said in his strange voice. "Here it may be that you shall rest a while, and heal your ills."

"Alas," said Elrond, "for one among us shall know no cure beneath these skies, and I shall be glad to go to my long rest."

But the eagle merely bowed his great head, and with a sweep of his thunderous wings, he took to the airs once more.

"Look!" Faramir cried out. He was standing tall, and his face was turned towards the East. "It is dawn, and the sun arises!"

And indeed they saw that it was so, and even Elrond felt the heat of the dawning rays upon his face, warming his death-bound limbs. Those among them that still had sight looked upon the Field of Cormallen, and saw that what they had once thought was desolate, sported bunches of pale green grass, sprouting through cracks in the ruined earth. They would have laughed then, with the gladness of life, but a racking cough broke the sweet silence. Elrond had not moved from where he lay, curled on one side on the ground, and now a paroxysm had taken him. He choked feebly, and a thin spray of blood coated the dried mud beside his head.

"Ada!" Elrohir knelt beside him, and took his hand in his own. "Please…"

"Nay… Please do not weep…" But he knew that tears streamed down his son's cheeks, for they fell onto his own face like the soft rains of spring. "Can you forgive me?"

"There is nothing to forgive, Adar, nothing in all these long years."

"Then I … am … glad…" He gasped for breath. "I shall not … live … long … now…"

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Please, meleth-nín, please. Do not die; do not leave me, Celebrían's voice was bitter with tears. _I cannot live if you leave me, El-nn; even here, I cannot live…_He could feel her despair as if it were his own.

__

Nay, he implored her. _You must live; you must…_

His eyes widened, as a beam of brilliant golden sunlight fell upon him, rich with the hues of dawn. "Ah…I see it now … Day has come again!"

And, so saying, he died, and the light went out of his eyes. Even as his spirit fled, he heard Celebrían's voice, overburdened with sorrow._ May the stars sing you to sleep, beloved…_

And then the silence took him, and the darkness of the Halls.

Elrohir reached out a tremulous hand, and closed the grey eyes that stared blankly at the eddying clouds. Silently and steadily he wept, as if he would never be done with tears. He bowed his head over the fragile corpse that had once been his father, mighty among Elves and Men.

"Lad." Ulrang touched his shoulder gently. He knew not how much time had passed while he sat in mourning, nor cared, but the sky was bright, and the clouds were clearing. In the distance, he could hear the clamorous sound of water falling upon rocks. Slowly, he got to his feet, his gaze never leaving the pallid shape that lay there.

"The Silmaril must be cast back into the depths of the earth," he said without inflection, indicating the gem with a wave of one hand. "It shall not be found again ere the ending of the world." He paused. "And for now, we have tasks that command us. I shall go to my sister in the Havens, bearing news of all that has passed here, and bring her unto the South Kingdom, and with her the babe that she has borne."

"There is one deed that must be done ere all else," Éowyn reminded them softly.

"Aye, and so we shall do it."

And so it was that they brought the body of Elrond Peredhil to the vale of Henneth Annun, still green even in those days, for the orcs had not found it, and the falls had not run dry. They brought him to the ledge high above the Window on the West, and there raised above him a burial mound, whereupon, in later days, grew _elanor_ and _niphredil_, a thing strange indeed. _Haudh-en-Edhel _it was called, the elf-barrow, even when the long years had waned, and the great tales were forgotten.

The Ring of Fire lay lost in the wastes of Mordor, and no man knew where it might be found, but there, upon the heights of Henneth Annun, they buried with him Nenya, the Ring of Adamant. And yet they took from him two rings, Vilya which had been his charge of old, and the golden band which had adorned his finger for years beyond count. These, Elrohir, son of Elrond, took with him a score of years hence, when he made his last voyaging into the utmost West, and there gave them into the trust of his mother, the Lady Celebrían who took them in her grief, and kept them ever by her.

But the Silmaril the companions bore hence, even unto the rain-softened foothills of the Hithaeglir, where a valley lay nestled amid the peaks, cradled by the rushing of the mountain waters. And there, beneath the foundations of the Last Homely House, they consigned the jewel of Fëanor once more unto the earth, far beneath the deepest cellars, that it might there lie hidden until the story of Arda was told in full, and all the songs sung

None came to that valley thereafter, save one: a young Man, tall and fair, his face graven with sorrow, and a crown upon his head, the heir of Men and Elves in this new world, a world wrought with his kinsman's blood.

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TBC

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Reviews will be gratefully received and used to feed my muse and entice it to cooperate.


	15. Epilogue

Desolation

Epilogue

So here it is: the real end to _Desolation. _I hope you enjoy it.

Massive thanks to **Isis **for betaing this and for massive encouragement. glomps

And, without further fuss, here we go…

* * *

Far below, the great ocean lapped at the feet of the mountains. Fishing boats rode the waves of a fair summer's day, and the eagle ruffled his feathers in distaste at the gulls which screamed and wailed about them, hoping to steal a portion of the catch. _He _was mighty in name and deed, and it was quite beneath him to claim kinship with carrion-thieves such as they.

His looping arc carried his far gaze away from the deep blue-black of the Sundering Seas, back towards the lands which lay wide and green beneath him. Far off, the high peak of Oiolossë gleamed in the sunlight, and he could hear his master's laughter borne on the winds. A great protecting wall of stone broke through the soft earth like a young stag's first horns through the velvet. Sheer and forbidding, the Pelóri climbed to the sky in sheet after sheet of fractured rock, bare save for lichens and the lingering snows, gilded now by Anor's rays. Age-old and impregnable, the heights of the Mountains of Defence stared out at the Sundering Seas in constant challenge to the Darkness.

But here, where the coast curved away, where the Bay of Eldamar bit deeply into the land, and the lights of Tol Eressëa shone on the waters, here, for one brief moment of stone and earth, the ancient defences faltered in their line, fading back into the earth from whence they had been born. Here, at the Calacirya through which in ancient days the Light of the Trees had fallen as a golden flood to light the sea.

The brisk, clear sea breeze caught at his primaries, setting his senses reeling with the sheer joy of flight, and he soared, letting the rising currents carry him, coasting on the chill, salty breeze, with the land rising and falling beneath him. He stretched out his great wings to cup the airs, and his keen eyes glimpsed a city hurrying towards him in the distance, a fair jewel of gold and diamond set atop its own hill: Tirion, the prize of the Noldor, greatest of all their works, save for the Silmarils that were lost. Bright it shone, the marble colonnades of Finarfin's Halls gleaming in the summer sunlight, roofs pale and dark, gardens gloriously green. Metal chasing gleamed on harnesses; gilt broidery on stately robes. Bolts of cloth in a thousand hues shimmered in the marketplace, and Elven voices filled the air with song.

His beak gaped in a raptor's grin, as he regarded the tiny scurrying figures with amused and superior toleration: they were not his business this day; he would leave them to their earth-bound lives.

A road ran West out of Tirion, down from the slopes of Túna where Galathilion bloomed. Grey and brown, it coiled this way and that through the deep cleft in the mountains, fading off into the distance towards the inlands of Valinor and the mansions of the Valar that lay therein. Soft plumes of dust marked travellers going this way and that, mayhap North, to Valimar and Taniquetil, or South, to the mansions of Aulë and the Gardens of Lórien, to the dwellings of Estë on an isle amidst the waters of the Lake of Lórellin. High meadows looked down upon the road's broad expanse, and heavy, golden grass sighed gently in the wind. Amidst its roots, small, furred things scuttled hither and thither, eyes and ears alert for danger.

But he had hunted things far more terrible than they, and his eyes were keen.

He dived from the heavens like the wrath of the Valar, claws extended, wings folded tight against his body. The rabbit fled, but too late. It fell limp in his claws, its neck neatly broken. It was scarcely more than a mouthful for a beast his size, yet tasty.

But, as he had dived, he had seen a figure moving slowly along the road, caped in black for all the warmth of the day, tall and slender, weary and dust-shod. The eagle did not need to see his face to know who or what he was, and his beak gaped further in a voracious grin as he tore into the rabbit's flesh. It was, indeed, a good day to be alive.

* * *

Pungent dust rose in dry puffs beneath the hooves of the recalcitrant cattle. The hedges towered tall above them, casting the winding road into deep, green shade. Early berries pricked the bushes; a heifer lowed in plaintive sorrow, and switched her tail at a tendril of hawthorn which trammelled her hooves. The air was thick with the warmth of shuffling beasts, clouded with the fine miasma of hot earth. In the distance, the city shone, golden and marble-pale, its topmost towers glimmering through the rift in the mountains. The light was failing, but slowly, attenuating to a soft, autumn haze, gilding the roofs and sills of Tirion. Far in the distance, the gulls called, shrieking on the wings of the wind. Further still was the call of the sea, salt-blue-sweet, the call of the depths and the endless waves, far beyond the gilded palaces.

The drover turned his head into the wind and sighed. Once, he had known the winds of the sea, the sweet call of the waves, had felt the swell and fall of the ocean beneath his feet. Once, too, he had seen the soft, swelling shoreline of that Middle-earth which now was lost to Elven-kind, and revelled in the gold-green beauty of its shores. Once, long ago, he had followed his king, even unto death, and beyond. Once, he had seen the cities rising like unto the splendour of the mountains.

He sighed again, and sighted between the ears of the oxen: maybe an hour to the city which stood yet twixt the mountain and the sea, and more again until Anor fell beneath the western sky. He smiled ruefully at the Elf pacing calmly beside his cart, and rubbed the wheat chaff from the fine bridge of his nose.

There, he thought, was a strange one. For the Elf wore a cloak of silken black even in the heat of the day, the deep hood casting his face into shade beneath which only eyes of an impenetrable silver were visible, fathomless as the deepest ocean. He gazed upon them but for an instant, and he would have sworn that he could hear the rushing of the waves as he did so, as if the Great Sea was once more before him.

He turned his head away. He did not wish to see the pristine secrets those eyes hid. He did not wish to gaze upon a soul so leavened with mithril light as this.

The Elf smiled at some secret pleasure, a smile wild and distant as the winds. Long, slender hands twitched in amusement beneath the hem of his travelling cloak, a flash of starlight against the darkness.

A fist of joy clutched at the drover's heart; he could not breathe; he could not think. A far land, dust beneath a weary sun he glimpsed, its strange beauty flashing before his eyes. A wearied people, the Fí rimar, toiling in dust-strewn clothes, their faces glad and sorrowful both. The gleam of moon, and stars, and sun. A single candle, burning brightly in the citadel of kings. A man, young in years by countenance and bearing, pacing rough-hewn battlements as pale as the first snows of winter, the wind fluttering the hem of his cloak and lifting his dark hair from his brow.

His breath caught in his throat; almost he choked on that strange dust. Almost he was blinded by that candlelight, shocked to silence by the weight of time falling upon him.

The Elf reached up and laid a hand upon the weather-worn wood of the cart. "It is enough that once we were there."

He blinked, startled to find the day bright and fair about him, the land warm and green as only this land ever had been. Dazed, his hands tightened on the reins and the oxen slackened their pace, lowing irritably. He stared at the wooden yoke about their necks, but he did not see it, for he felt once more between his hands the sword that once he had borne, knew once again the shackles that had bound his wrists. He rubbed the fresh, unblemished skin nervously, almost surprised to find that no scars marred the flesh of new life.

The stranger's eyes gleamed suddenly bright, and the lowering sun cast scarlet alloys in his pitch-dark hair. His hand was that of a bard, the fingers fine and slender. "It is enough that once we were there."

* * *

He stood stock-still, his golden hair cast about his shoulders like a veil. The dappled sunlight fell upon his face, casting shadows in the depths of his eyes. His slim fingers flexed and coiled upon the neck of the lute he had been handling. 'Twas a sweet instrument, its tone pure and clear, neck and body inlaid with delicately scrolling pear wood, but he found he had no eye for it now. Almost he would have dropped it, if his wife had not taken it from him, her own hands trembling, her eyes wide with shock.

The stranger stood full in the light of the westering sun not five paces away, his head tipped to one side, his face intent as if he were listening to some call no other could hear. A hood lay slack about his shoulders. Although dust clung to the hem of his cloak, no trace of it seemed to adhere to his sharply delineated features, as clear and pale as starlight, lit with the wondering radiance of those but newly returned from the Halls of Mandos. It was a radiance that the Elf knew well, for he had seen it in too many faces, the faces of those slain in fearful combat in the wars of Middle-earth, his own not the least.

But those features - those he could not mistake, would not have mistaken, even were it not for the descriptions given by those but lately arrived from the Hither Lands, their voices low with awe and sorrow. 'Twas a note he had heard in those who spoke his own tale, and there he had disliked it greatly, for it seemed strange payment for deeds of rash folly, even those wisely ended. But here…

Aye, 'twas a face he was not like to forget, for its likenesses had been much in his life.

No holy light fell from this brow, but so alike was it to that of the Mariner of the heavens, the strong cast of those features, the mouth given to rare, sweet smiles, that the kinship could not be denied. The tall, lean frame that owed as much to the Fathers of Men as to the royal line of the House of Finwë, the set of the shoulders, resolute in joy and sorrow alike. Nay, none could deny that. And yet there was something else - a delicacy of face, mayhap, a light in the eyes, the play of the afternoon sunlight on that dark hair that recalled to his mind another face upon another form, an Elven maiden he had know so long ago, when the world was young.

"Aye, 'tis as she said," he spoke as if to himself. "My sister-daughter spoke the veriest truth: he is as like to Lúthien as may be given male form beneath this latter sun, and yet he is his father's son."

But even as he spoke, his words jolted him abruptly from the reverie of ancient times and lost days into which he had sunk. While wonder caught him, there was another who would greet this day with greater joy by far than he could muster. He met his wife's eyes wordlessly, and she took his hand, holding it tightly, smoothing the gold band that encircled his forefinger. "Come, Finrod. Yonder friend has need of a hand to guide him."

"Aye." He bussed her forehead lightly, brushing the golden hair back with one tremulous hand. "It is strange when seeming ghosts take form before my very eyes."

She grimaced, and he smiled ruefully. "I had no warning when you returned from Mandos, love," she reminded him.

"O Valar! What shall we say to Celebrían?"

Amarië winced. "Is there aught we can say to make this shock the less?"

* * *

He felt the first twinges of terror as Elven lord and maiden hurried him through the streets of Tirion upon Túna. The low-angled sun seemed hot on his shoulders, but it did not warm his skin, and a cold fist clenched in the pit of his stomach. It would not be easy, this. Long had he been secure in her love - but her forgiveness? Aye, that was a different matter. The Maiar of Estë who had tended him in the gardens of Lórellin had told him that four and fifty years had faded into darkness since his life had fled upon the Field of Cormallen, and that was long enough for any to brood upon the wrongs done them, the losses suffered, the grief endured.

And yet he loved her still, his mind an unquiet thing without the silver surety of her presence. Dimly he could feel her, fumblingly he sought her presence, but it was not that strength of wonder that once he had known. _I come, Celebrían. Will you receive me? _But there was no answer, and he let Lord Finrod and the Lady Amarië draw him onwards, pausing only to veil his face with the shadows of his hood once more.

* * *

Celebrían glanced up from the book that lay in her lap as a door slammed loudly somewhere in the house. The unwonted noise pierced the subtle calm of Tirion and awoke her from the half-drowse in which she had drifted. Of late, she had found that true sleep did not come easy to her, nor did the smiles of strangers offer much comfort to guard against the chill that gnawed at her as she lay awake at night. And yet the days seemed to pass as if in a dream, and oft some other would rouse her, and she would find herself sitting thus, her task all but forgotten, her mind a maze of wispy thoughts that would not succumb to the chiding will.

Brushing her muslin skirts down with one hand, she set the book aside, and rose, stretching slowly. Before she could make any other move, her uncle was before her. The look on his face stilled her in a moment. The gentle, open candour of his countenance was dulled, as if barred with great shutters of iron. His mouth was drawn into a tight line, his skin ashen-fair and flushed. "Niece…" He clasped her shoulders lightly. Only as he did so did she realise that she had been shaking her head frantically, trembling with fear.

"Naneth?" The single word was an agony. Still her parents had not taken ship from Middle-earth, and still with every dawn she awaited news of the barque that would bear them hither across the wide wastes of ocean. "Adar?"

"Nay." Finrod shook his head, smiling slightly. "There is no new news of them, although I pray it shall not be long ere your mother walks the wharves of Alqualondë once more."

"What then can it be to so disturb you?" She grasped his hands, drawing them away from herself. "Uncle, what is the news you bring?"

He stared at her for a long moment, his eyes strangely distant, and then he laughed oddly, dropping his head as if in a token of surrender. "I had thought that I might have words to soften this, but I find myself bereft of them. There are no words for this, but I wish you joy, Celebrían, daughter to my only sister."

And he was gone before she had the breath to question him. In his place, as if wrought from the shadows that crowded thickly about the hall, stood one garbed in black, the hood drawn up to cast his face into shade. His shoulders were broad beneath the soft cloth, and yet he seemed diffident, as one uncertain of his skill in battle facing a greater foe.

"Who…?"

And then he raised his hands to his hood, and she knew, even ere she saw his face. Bare of the wedding band she had gifted to him and the Ring he had borne for so long, still she knew his hands, elegant, long-fingered, strong in war and kind in peace.

And then he lowered his hood, the fabric shivering with his fear, and she saw his face. That most beloved countenance showed neither sign nor scar of the long suffering of those last months in Middle-earth, as gentle with unmarred wisdom as ever she had known it. It was enough.

She stepped forward, all thought fled away, and wrapped him tightly in her arms. He stiffened, his eyes wide and wild with shock, staring down at her as if she were quite mad. And then, abruptly, the tension went from him, the last fear draining from his face, and he merely held her. If she wept tears then, she did not later remember them, nor count them of much significance. They had long dried on his tunic ere he released her, and they had much to speak of, and much to contemplate in the silences between words and in the calm quiet of thoughts shared.

For a long while they stood thus, ebon and silver as the last light faded from the sky, and while they did not shirk their sorrow, there was much joy betwixt them.

"Five hundred and sixty-four years since last I held you thus," he murmured wonderingly, his lips pressed to the silken hair at the crown of her head.

"We have been too long apart, hervenn-nîn. I would not have it so again."

"Nor would I."

"I…Oh!" She broke off, whatever she might have been about to say forgotten. She grasped his hand and ushered him through the house, ignoring his enquiries, a small smile playing about her lips. The chamber they reached at last was hers. Great doors, as tall as the tallest of the Elves, stood open on the night, and through them they could hear, far off, the soft sounds of the city. A bed, neatly made, occupied one corner. Elrond was bemused to find himself blushing scarlet as Celebrían's eyes touched first upon it and then upon him.

She smiled briefly, and turned away to kneel beside the low cabinet that hunkered alongside it. He watched her, his unwitting protest stilled in his throat by curiosity. It did not take her long to find that which she sought. She folded it in one hand, and with the other drew him down until their faces were level. His cloak, hanging forgotten from his shoulders pooled around them, and her knees were warm against his. He glanced at her, unnerved by her presence after so long apart, even as he revelled in it. She smiled again, and unfurled her fist. Two objects lay there, but she did not give him chance to see the second, for the first was the band of gold she had given unto him upon their marriage day. Worn by time, chipped by tricks of fate and circumstance and small elflings, there it was, as if he had never fallen into death upon the cool earth of the Outer Lands.

She leant in and pressed her lips to his, clasping his hand between her own, and slipped the ring onto his forefinger. The metal chilled his skin, but he did not mind. Drawing away reluctantly, he looked down at the gold glimmering against his skin, and he smiled, his grey eyes sweet and merry. No shadow showed in their depths, only the distant glory of starlight reflected upon the wide waters.

"This is indeed a token of which I am glad." He tilted her chin upwards, his own eyes glinting darkly in response to the invitation in hers, and bent his head for a kiss. With a smile, she drew back, and opened her hand again. Now, he saw what lay there: Vilya, his burden and his trust for so many years. No potency illumined its depths now, but still the great stone shone with luminous brightness, and almost he feared to put out his hand to it.

"How…?"

"Our son is here, Elrond, although he is not now within the city bounds, nor do Iknow whence his wanderings have brought him. 'Twas he who gave to me the rings and such items as had seen saved from Imladris."

Brief pain twisted his face, and his eyes were sorrowing. "I shall be glad indeed to see him once more."

And, before memory could become more than even Elven substance could endure, he took Vilya lightly from her palm. It seemed smaller, somehow, than he remembered, its presence no longer a shadow of wonder and dread about him. He laughed, turning it over and over in his hand, light and dark, light and dark.

Celebrían watched him, as he gazed upon the Ring of Air. The scent which clung to him was of fresh hay, and the musty sweetness of autumn, of ripening apples and the dying year, shot through with the spicy sweetness which had ever been his. His eyes were as grey and as bright as starlight, depthless as a highland mere at twilight, and she loved him, although it cut her to the heart. Light and dark, dark and light the ring flashed, and where the blue glints of the great stone fell, the room seemed bright with the hope of summer lost and the promise of another year. He flicked it up in the air, as careless as if it had been a child's trinket, and snatched it from its spinning coils with the speed of starlight. Light and dark it fell, glimmering with the wondrous danger of his eyes, and he threw back his head, his hair as the depths of night about him, and he laughed again, and the sorrow in his eyes was dimmed.

"The Rings have passed away and the Age of Men has begun, but I do not now fear as once I did, and of that I am glad. Vairë has not yet set her last stitch in the storied tapestries of time and the winding thread of memory is not yet snapped. There is time enough for the Music of Eä, and for you and I to wander a while in the gardens, and of that I am glad."

They did not grace the gardens that eventide, although their laughter awakened the starlings asleep in the trees, fading languidly into the starlit night of the great and wondrous city of Tirion upon Túna.

Beyond the seas, that same night fell warm and silent about the Elf-barrow that looked out upon the Ancient West from the hill above the falls of Henneth Annûn.

* * *

**FINIS**

Calacirya - the Pass of Light.

hervenn-nîn - my husband.

Fírimar - Mortals, an Elvish name for Men.

Thank you all very much for reading this far. The story's taken a long time to tell but I've enjoyed the telling.

Thanks again.

Losseniaiel. 16th December 2004.

Review?


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